Allure of Amber

HOW would you like to have a chess tournament named after you? If you are superstitious, you may be the first to say: “Cheh, touch wood, touch wood!”

It’s not common for a person to want a chess tournament named after him, not while he’s still alive anyway. Normally, a chess player would have died before he is honoured with a memorial tournament organised in his name.

However, there are rare occasions when a living chess player is honoured. Usually, it’s because the player would have been very old already and also well respected in international chess circles.

A living example is Svetozar Gligoric, the Serbian (formerly Yugoslav) grandmaster who was 85 on Feb 2. His birthday bash was a big chess tournament in which 85 players, including 28 grandmasters, took part.

Though such events are rare, even rarer still are tournaments that are named after young people. Only one event springs to mind: the annual Melody Amber tournament in Monaco, Europe. Lately, it has been known simply as the Amber tournament.

But who is Melody Amber?

In 1992, when Dutch billionaire Joop van Oosterom decided to sponsor a chess tournament, he named it after his toddler of a daughter, Melody Amber.

So okay, the two-year-old Melody Amber had no say or could not object to his father’s plans. The Melody Amber started and had continued annually until this very day. Every year, it attracts the cream of the world’s best players to Monaco.

  Ivanchuk-KarjakinIvanchuk vs Karjakin (Amber Tournament 2008) 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bc4 e6 7. Bb3 b5 8. Bg5 Be7 9. Qf3 Qc7 10. e5 Bb7 11. exd6 Bxd6 12. Qe3 Bc5 13. O-O-O Nc6 14. Qxe6+ (see diagram) fxe6 15. Nxe6 Qe5 16. Nxg7+ Kf8 17. Ne6+ Kf7 18. Rhe1 Qxe1 19. Nxc5+ Kg6 20. Rxe1 Kxg5 21. Nxb7 Nd4 22. Nd6 Rhf8 23. f3 b4 24. Nce4+ Nxe4 25. Rxe4 Nxb3+ 26. axb3 a5 27. Rg4+ Kf6 28. Ne4+ Ke5 29. Rh4 a4 30. bxa4 Rxa4 31. Nc5 Ra1+ 32. Kd2 Rg8 33. g3 Rf1 34. Ke2 Rb1 35. Rxb4 Kd5 36. Ne4 Kc6 37. h4 Rh1 38. Rc4+ Kb6 39. b4 Rd8 40. Rc5 Ra8 41. c3 Ra2+ 42. Ke3 Re1+ 43. Kf4 Rf1 44. Rh5 Ra8 45. Rh6+ Kb5 46. Nd6+ Ka4 47. Rxh7 Kb3 48. Rc7 Rd8 49. Nf5 (1-0)

What makes this event so special, however, is its format. Originally, this was a rapid chess tournament in 1992 but the following year, van Oosterom expanded the event and made it more innovative by adding a second format.

No, it was no longer a simple rapid chess event. The participants also had to play in a blindfold chess event, both running concurrently. No wonder chess players around the world became so interested in the Amber tournament.

The rapid chess event was nothing but the blindfold side of the tournament was something new and unique altogether.

When people talk about blindfold chess, what comes to most people’s mind are chess players with dark handkerchiefs covering their eyes. That’s the typical image of blindfold chess.

Non-chess players are often left in awe when they think: “Wow, how can they know where the pieces are? Would they need a good memory to remember what have been played?”

Oh yes, definitely so. You’ll need a good memory. Everyone needs a good memory, and it’s not for playing chess alone. We all need a good memory to get on with our lives. However, chess players – at least the better ones – may be able to visualise better than most people.

Visualisation technique allows chess players to plan their games. Visualisation allows chess players to imagine chess positions and allow chess pieces to dance in their mind’s eyes. The heightened power of imagination, visualisation and the ability to evaluate positions are probably what set chess players apart from non-chess players.

If you are playing blindfold chess like the professional chess players do at the Amber tournament, you will probably be able to visualise a lot, too, in your mind. But the blindfold chess they play is not the type I described earlier. No, the players do not have handkerchiefs over their eyes. That’s old fashioned.

What they do now is to sit at their computer. They do not look at their opponents. Instead, they stare at an image of an empty chessboard on the computer’s display screen, zombie-like. They type out a move on their computer and instantly, their opponent receives the move on his screen. It’s still an empty board that they see but they also see the notation of the last played move.

The game notation plays a significant part in blindfold chess. Knowing the game notation means the players are still able to visualise all the pieces and all the moves on the empty chessboard. To a skilled chess player, that’s probably enough to go through a whole game. Neat, isn’t?

This year’s Amber tournament was thus the 17th edition of a series that went back to 1992. Twelve of the world’s leading grandmasters played blindfold and rapid chess games against each other, competing for a prize fund of ?216,000 (about RM1mil).

In the blindfold section, four players were tied on top spot with six points from 11 games: Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Alexander Morozevich and Veselin Topalov. However, the rapid section was a complete domination by Aronian who scored a massive eight points from 11 games, leaving the other players way behind him.

Together, Aronian finished the Amber tournament with 14½ points. His nearest rivals were Kramnik, Peter Leko, Topalov and Magnus Carlsen who had 12 points each.

Bunched a further point back were Vassily Ivanchuk, Viswanathan Anand and Morozevich. Sergei Karjakin ended with 9½ points while propping up the tournament standings were Boris Gelfand, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov and Loek van Wely who each obtained nine points.

Space does not allow me to present more than one game from this tournament but this game (see diagram) between Ivanchuk and Karjakin from the rapid event featured a spectacular queen sacrifice by Ivanchuk. After a series of exchanges, the position petered out into an endgame where Ivanchuk held a distinct advantage over his opponent.

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