Melody Amber Starts Saturday

It isn't the most important tournament on the yearly chess calendar, but it might well be the most fun. The 14th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament, taking place in Monaco and sponsored by Dutch billionaire and correspondence world champion Joop van Oosterom, starts Saturday, goes through March 31, and features a real murderer's row of a lineup:

Viswanathan Anand
Evgeny Bareev
Boris Gelfand
Vassili Ivanchuk
Vladimir Kramnik
Peter Leko
Alexander Morozevich
Alexei Shirov
Peter Svidler
Veselin Topalov
Francisco Vallejo
Loek van Wely

The rounds consist of two sub-rounds: a rapid game and a blindfold game, and while the rapid games and even the blindfold games are typically of high quality, you might be surprised to discover just how many blunders even the world's best can make when they're not looking at the board.

Thus the tournament has something for everyone: great players, fun games (quick time controls and no rating points at stake tend to do that), and frequent occasion for Schadenfreude!