Melody Amber 2008

many stars gather for a rapid-blindfold exhibition

Melody Amber 2008 chess tournament will be begin March 14 in Nice. It will feature a nice part of the world top chess players:

Participants

Kramnik, Vladimir
Anand, Viswanathan
Topalov, Veselin
Morozevich, Alexander
Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar
Leko, Peter
Ivanchuk, Vassily
Aronian, Levon
Gelfand, Boris
Carlsen, Magnus
Karjakin, Sergey
Van Wely, Loek

The newest entrant in one of the most commercial chess competitions is Sergey Karjakin. He won the 2007 edition of the NH chess tournament a full point ahead of the competition. Besides Karjakin, this will be the first participation for Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.

Three of the four world chess championship contenders will also be in Nice - Vladimir Kramnik, Vishy Anand, and Veselin Topalov. We will not see Gata Kamsky, but Morozevich will be playing after he refused to participate in the Grand Prix series.

The history of Melody amber

Melody Amber started in 1992 as an event of rapid chess and in the next year blindfold has been added to the event. It is sponsored by a rich Dutch family and is held every March. Here are the winners in all editions until now:

1 1992 Vassily Ivanchuk
2 1993 Ljubomir Ljubojević
3 1994 Viswanathan Anand
4 1995 Anatoly Karpov
5 1996 Vladimir Kramnik
6 1997 Viswanathan Anand
7 1998 Alexei Shirov
8 1999 Vladimir Kramnik
9 2000 Alexei Shirov
10 2001 Vladimir Kramnik
11 2002 Alexander Morozevich
12 2003 Viswanathan Anand
13 2004 Alexander Morozevich
14 2005 Viswanathan Anand
15 2006 Viswanathan Anand
16 2007 Vladimir Kramnik