 Go On Amber
They say all good things must come to an end. And so with that in mind, we see the 20th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament returning to its spiritual home of Monaco for a farewell Jubilee Edition of a simply unique tournament that has grown up with the young lady it was named in honor of after her birth, Melody Amber van Oosterom.
In this final jubilee edition, that will take place at the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco, from March 12 to 24, 2011, the line-up includes a truly stellar grandmaster field brought to us by the organizers from the Association Max Euwe, of: Viswanathan Anand (India), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Levon Aronian (Armenia), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Alexander Grischuk (Russia), Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Sergey Karjakin (Russia), Boris Gelfand (Israel), Hikaru Nakamura (United States), Vugar Gashimov (Azerbaijan) and Anish Giri (The Netherlands).
And to bid a fond farewell to the Amber Tournaments, each day here at ICC, the Chess.FM team will be in action to cover every round. GMs Yasser Seirawan & co-host Ronen Har-Zvi will be joined by GMs Peter Svidler, Jan Smeets, Larry Christiansen, Joel Benjamin, Alex Yermolinsky, Nick De Firmian, Gregory Kaidanov and Miguel Illescas - all of whom will also be providing a daily GOTD service. There will also be a daily trivia contest to win a one-year subscription to New In Chess magazine.
Live coverage will start from 8:30am ICC every day (last round starting at 6:30am ICC) - check the full ICC schedule for Amber by clicking here. Join ICC by clicking here to take part in all the activities and get the chance to win major prizes!
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Last week ICC revamped their Facebook page - and we've had a great response from members and non-members looking to take part in the activities there, where we'll shortly be offering prizes and special membership offers.
On offer will be free Chess.FM video content and ICC membership extensions - and for non-members who have enjoyed in the past free ICC trials that have expired, look to our Facebook page for exclusive extra free trial times! We'll also have all the latest ICC news and tournament results as well as some fun caption competitions. And all coming soon as we continually update our Facebook page!
Go to Facebook now and click on our "like" button now - and what's not to be liked about ICC!
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Meet Me in St. Louis...
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| Next month in Saint Louis, the 2011 US Championship is set to take place. And GMs Gregory Kaidanov and Ray Robson advanced to the US Championship to complete the 16-player field by earning the final two qualifying spots from the tough Saint Louis Invitational earlier this week. |
Kaidanov, who is one of Chess.FM's leading commentators (he'll be on during the Amber Tournament on Saturday, 19th March, alongside Yasser Seirawan - who himself has came out of retirement to play in the US Championship!), led the event from start to finish to win with 6/9 - but young buck Robson took the hard route by having to win his last round game against former champion Joel Benjamin (another leading Chess.FM commentator, not to mention host of Game of the Week below!) and then defeat Alejandro Ramirez, 1.5-0.5, in a two game playoff to earn his ticket to the US Championship.
Final standings: 1. Kaidanov, 6; 2-3. Robson and Ramirez, 5.5; 4. Kraai, 5; 5-9. Brooks, Yang, Benjamin, Becerra and Perelshteyn, 4; 10. Khachiyan, 3
New on Chess.FM - "Game of the Week"
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One of the great benefits of ICC (apart from all the top-notch online play and tournaments) in recent years has been the upgrade in our Chess.FM service - many members agree that the live Chess.FM commentary and GOTDs from our elite tournament coverage alone is worthy of their membership fee. As a member you also have access all through the year to our regular weekly shows: Ronens Opening Survey (Mondays), Chess Talk and Beyond the Opening (Tuesdays), Attack With LarryC (Wednesdays), Boris Altermans Gambit Guide (Thursdays), Joel Benjamins Game of the Week (Fridays), and Dan Heisman's Improve Your Chess (Saturdays).
Today we have made free for everyone to view one of the top weekly shows on Chess.FM, namely GM Joel Benjamin's Game of the Week. Join ICC today by clicking here to view all the regular Chess.FM show - and not forgetting the hundreds of archived shows!
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Three-time U.S. Champion GM Joel Benjamin brings you a new show every Friday at 15:00 Server Time. Joel is regarded by many as one of the best commentators and analysts' we have in the game today -- so if you want to get ahead of the game, get ready to tune-in!
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