Amber: the last word
Let's return one more time to the 2009 Amber Blindfold and Rapid tournament, to present you the final two videos and a small selection of photos that we hadn't published before. Enjoy!
During the Amber tournament we took many, many photos but most of them were never actually published here on ChessVibes. Back home we finally found the time to sort them out and upload them to Flickr. Here's a selection, and below the photos you can find the video player including our last two videos:
What a blindfold tournament playing hall looks like
Name tags of many super strong participants
Wang Yue, often arriving first for the blindfold session
Hungary's no. 1 player Peter Leko
Alexander Morozevich adjusting his pieces
Have we lost another chess player to poker? No... fear not. This shot was taken during the casino party during the first rest day...
...the same day Vassily Ivanchuk turned 40...
...the same age retired Dutch GM Jeroen Piket reached in January this year
The stubborn and stoical central forward of the popular table football
Classical holiday pic: Levon Aronian and Loek van Wely during the second rest day...
...a trip to ?éle Saint-Honorat with its fortified monastery of Abbey L?©rins
Already at the top before the end of the tourney: Levon Aronian
Topping the world rankings, a cool Topalov in another holiday pic
Ivanchuk exploring French flora and fauna
The always cheerful Vlastimil Hort
Catching the moment, as he's not posing too often for photographers: Norway's super grandmaster Magnus Carlsen
Teimour Radjabov in a typical fighting pose
Sergey Karjakin, who managed to beat a by now former Angstgegner, Vassily Ivanchuk, twice at Amber
Topalov in action
Magnus Carlsen talking (or should we say listening) to his father Henrik
Another Radjabov one we especially like
In the video player two last videos have been added after round 11: one summarizing that last round and one looking back at this year's tournament with comments by Aronian, Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Radjabov and a big interview with Vlastimil Hort.
Founder and editor-in-chief of ChessVibes.com, Peter is responsible for most of the chess news and tournament reports. Often visiting top events, he also provides photos and videos for the site. He's a 1.e4 player himself, likes Thai food and the Stones.
Comments
Arne Moll
2 years 10 months ago
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I noticed the same thing, DrTom! It's even pleasant to listen to him now.
CAL|Daniel
2 years 10 months ago
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what pray tell is kissing the queen?
Elz
2 years 10 months ago
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Yes, Radja changed "Ok" to "I mean". It's a step forward i guess...
xtra
2 years 10 months ago
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is it just me, or has the video buffering speed been a bit slow during the whole amber? Or maybe it was always like this? Anyway, it would be nice with a slightly faster video service.
Peter Doggers
2 years 10 months ago
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To my knowledge the buffering only speed depends on the internet connection and browser speed - the hosting provider of the videos (blip) hasn't changed anything.
Pedro
2 years 10 months ago
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I noticed that the buffering speed was a bit slow too. And my internet conection is not slow.
DrTom
2 years 10 months ago
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Anyone else noticed how much Radjabov has changed lately ? At least on the videos : he speaks much more calmly, he doesn't say "ok" all the time anymore, his english has improved a lot, etc.
I don't want to sound preposterous, it's just that he seems so much more "adult" lately, calm and mature...
Kissing the Queen
2 years 10 months ago
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What do you think of the Amber Super-Tournament having a 3rd tournament decidated to Ivanchuk's brainchild, the variant 'Kissing the Queen'? It would make for greater interest among spectators and the added sponsorship that will result may increase the prizefund.
Silken
2 years 10 months ago
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Chessbase's April Fool's joke. Funny to see that these things just keep hitting their target.
ChessGirl
2 years 10 months ago
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I really like the fighting-pose Radjabov pic, seeing that look on his face I would have resigned on move 2! :)
suneet
2 years 10 months ago
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where is anand? was he playing? or is he very camera shy?
Castro
2 years 10 months ago
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Peter, will you please answer my questions on the Wesley So article?
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