The 17th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament is held from March 15 to March 27 (last round) at the five-star luxury Hotel Palais de la Mediterranйe, ideally situated at the famous Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Twelve top grandmasters from ten different countries take part and the total prize-fund is 216,000 Euro. The Amber tournament is organised by the Association Max Euwe in Monaco and generously sponsored by Mr and Mrs Van Oosterom. The Amber tournament is one of the most prestigious chess events in the world and the only one in which half of the games are played blindfold, i.e. without the players seeing board and pieces.
The participants in the 17th edition are (in brackets behind their name and country is given their place in the current world rankings):

01. Vladimir Kramnik, Russia (1)
02. Vishy Anand, India (2)
03. Veselin Topalov, Bulgaria (3)
04. Alexander Morozevich, Russia (4)
05. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov , Azerbaijan (6)
06. Peter Leko, Hungary (8)
07. Vasily Ivanchuk, Ukraine (9)
08. Levon Aronian, Armenia (10)
09. Boris Gelfand, Israel (11)
10. Magnus Carlsen, Norway (13)
11. Sergey Karjakin, Ukraine (14)
12. Loek van Wely, The Netherlands (35)

The average rating of the players is 2752, which amounts to Category 21 of the World Chess Federation FIDE.