ChessVibes is in Nice! On Saturday the first round of the 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament will be played and just like last year, I'll be producing daily video reports for the official tournament website. News flash: pairings are up! First round: Kramnik-Morozevich, Radjabov-Topalov, Karjakin-Wang Yue, Carlsen-Kamsky, Anand-Leko and Aronian-Ivanchuk. Poll added.

The 18th Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, organized by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco, takes place from March 14 (first round) to March 26 (last round) at the five-star hotel Palais de la Mediterran?©e, splendidly located on the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. The total prize-fund is ‚Ǩ 216,000 and this year‚Äôs field is stronger than ever with all the world‚Äôs best players taking part.

The twelve participants are (in alphabetical order): World Champion Viswanathan Anand (India), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Gata Kamsky (United States), Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Peter Leko (Hungary), Alexander Morozevich (Russia), Teimour Radjabov (Azerbaijan), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria) and Wang Yue (China).

Every day four sessions will be played, two blindfold sessions and two rapid sessions. The first session starts at 14.30 hrs. The fourth session finishes around 20.00 hrs. (Note: the final round on March 26 starts at 12.30 hrs. March 18 and 23 are rest days.) Official website: www.amberchess2009.com.

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