1. Magnus Carlsen – Norway

Elo rating: 2813
World ranking: 1
Date of birth: November 30, 1990
Amber highlights: Shared second in the rapid in his 2007 debut, shared second in 2008, shared first in the blindfold in 2009.


On the January 2010 FIDE rating list, ‘slightly ahead of schedule’, Magnus Carlsen conquered the first place in the world rankings. Aged 19, he was the youngest chess player ever to achieve this feat. The top spot in the rating hierarchy was the inevitable result of a series of excellent results in the course of 2009. His finest victory the Norwegian celebrated in the super-tournament in Nanjing where he posted an unbelievable 3002 performance and won all his games as White. He finished the year with a win in the London Classic, this time with a TPR of 2839, which was more or less in line with his current 2813 rating. Another 2009 highlight was his win in the World Blitz Championship, a full three points ahead of Vishy Anand. In the first month of this year Carlsen continued his streak of successes  by claiming first place in the Corus tournament, the youngest GM in history to do so.

Carlsen has been making headlines worldwide ever since he began his race for the grandmaster title. In the first month of 2004 he took the Corus C Group by storm and only three months later he made his third and final GM norm in Dubai. At the age of 13 years, 4 months and 26 days he was
(at that time) the youngest grandmaster in the world. In the years that followed this historic moment Carlsen didn’t disappoint his followers. In rapid and blitz tournaments he drew with Kasparov and even beat Karpov and Anand, and also in ‘classical’ chess he began collecting outstanding results. At the 2005 World Cup tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, he became the youngest chess player in history to qualify for the Candidates’ matches for the world championship. Among his further tournament successes are first place in Biel in 2007, and shared first place in Wijk aan Zee and the Baku Grand Prix tournament in 2008.

It goes without saying that Carlsen continues to be closely followed by the press. Thousands of articles have been written about him, a film has been made about his spectacular rise (The Prince of Chess) and a book has appeared (originally published as Wonderboy). Still, anyone who believes that he’s only obsessed with chess is wrong. He’s just as passionate about football, tennis or skiing.

In Amber Carlsen has also been improving rapidly. In 2008 he tied for second overall, last year he tied for first in the blindfold. There can be no doubt about his aim this time.

2. Vladimir Kramnik -Russia

Elo rating: 2790
World ranking: 3
Date of birth: June 25, 1975
Amber highlights: Overall winner in 1996, 1998 (shared with Shirov), 1999, 2001 (shared with Topalov), 2004 (shared with Morozevich) and 2007. Shared second in 2008 and 2009.


No player can boast a better Amber record than Vladimir Kramnik, who over the years won the event an amazing six times. And when he doesn’t win the tall Russian always mixes in the fight for first place, as testify his second places in the previous two editions. Kramnik is exceptionally strong in the blindfold part. Last year he even considered asking the arbiter if he could also play the rapid games without sight of the board. His blindfold win against Topalov in the 2003 edition ranks as one of the most brilliant achievements in Amber history.

Kramnik has been among the world elite ever since he burst upon the scene at the Manila Olympiad in 1992, where as a 17-year-old youngster he had a baffling 8,5 out of 9 debut on the Russian team. Over the years he’s won practically everything that there is to be won, including the
super-tournaments in Wijk aan Zee in 1998 and Linares in 2000 and 2004.

In Dortmund he lifted the winner’s trophy no fewer than nine times! His tie for first with Kasparov in Linares in 2000 turned out to be the prologue of the biggest success in his rich career, his World Championship match victory over the same Kasparov later that year in London. Without suffering a single loss he defeated his ‘former boss’ 8,5-6,5. Kramnik successfully defended his world title in Brissago in 2004 against Peter Leko when in a must-win situation he won the last game, and in Elista in 2006 against Topalov, when he struck in the rapid play-off. He lost the title in 2007 in the World Championship Tournament in Mexico where he finished shared second behind the new champion, Anand. In Bonn 2008 he got a chance to reclaim the title in a match against Anand, but the Indian proved better prepared and won convincingly.

Bad preparation was also Kramnik’s complaint after he failed to win this year’s Corus tournament (although he did beat his rival Carlsen in a great game), so we can expect him to arrive with some fresh ammunition in Nice. After all, Kramnik has the reputation of being one of the best prepared players in the world. Currently ranked 3rd in the world, Kramnik admirably recovered after he lost against Anand in Bonn and his results in 2009 were impressive as ever. He once again won Dortmund and he also topped what was probably the strongest tournament of the year, the Tal Memorial in Moscow. In Nice he will be, as always, one of the top-favourites.

3. Levon Aronian – Armenia

Elo rating: 2782
World ranking: 5
Date of birth: October 6, 1982
Amber highlights: shared 2nd in the rapid in 2006,
winner in 2008 and 2009.


As the glorious winner of the past two Amber tournaments, Levon Aronian is obviously the man to beat in this year’s 19th edition. Last year the Armenian number one edged out Anand and Kramnik by half a point to take overall first. In 2008 Aronian truly was on a rampage in Nice, when playing inspired chess he claimed first place 2½(!) points ahead of Kramnik, Topalov, Leko and Carlsen.

Aronian had his international break-through in 2005 when he celebrated one success after the other and shot up to the fifth place in the world rankings. His successes in that revelatory year included a shared first place in Gibraltar, first place in Nagorno-Karabakh, and, to cap it all, first place in the World Cup tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk. Of course, these results didn’t come completely unexpected. After all he was already World Junior Champion U-12 as long ago as 1994 and overall World Junior Champion in 2002.

Aronian continued to be successful in 2006. He claimed first prize in the Morelia-Linares tournament and later that year he also tied for first in the Tal Memorial.

In 2007 Aronian shared first place in the Corus tournament and when he arrived in Elista for the Candidates’ matches he was seen as one of the outspoken favourites. Rightly so, as he knocked out Carlsen and Shirov to qualify for the World Championship Tournament in Mexico, where he had to settle for shared sixth place.
In 2008 he won Corus again, this time together with Carlsen, and he also won the Karen Asrian Memorial in Yerevan and the Grand Prix tournament in Sochi. But easily the most important success for him was the victory of the Armenian team at the Dresden Olympiad, unequivocal proof that their win in Torino in 2006 had been no accident.

His biggest successes in 2009 were his continued domination in the FIDE Grand Prix, in which he took first place with one tournament to go, and his first place in the Grand Slam Final in Bilbao.

Aronian’s debut in the 2006 Amber tournament will not easily be forgotten. The off-beat and sometimes outright weird openings that he confronted his opponents with caused both amazement and hilarity. His games in the following two years were slightly less eccentric, but last year he again won several games with what John Nunn dubbed ‘slow-motion swindling.’

4. Alexander Grischuk – Russia

Elo rating: 2756
World ranking: 7
Date of birth: October 31, 1983
Amber highlights: overall fourth in 2006.


Although he only played in one Amber tournament before, the Amber tournament was his unambiguous choice when last year Alexander Grischuk was asked to name his favourite tournament. One of the reasons must be that the Russian, possibly more than any of his colleagues, is a staunch advocate of faster time controls and doesn’t see blitz and rapid championships as events of lesser importance. Not surprisingly, he rates his win at the Blitz World Championship in Rishon-Le-Zion in 2006 as one of the finest achievements in his career.

However, that doesn’t mean that Grischuk doesn’t excel at ‘classical’ chess, too. On the contrary. For many years already he has been one of the world’s leading players and although his current rating of 2756 is his highest ever, he already occupied the seventh spot in the world rankings once before, in 2004.

Grischuk likes tournaments where there is a high first prize at stake and perhaps that explains why he also did well at the FIDE knock-out world championships. In 2000 in New Delhi, at the age of seventeen, he reached the semi-finals, while in 2004 in Libya he proceeded to the quarter finals. In 2005 his result in the FIDE World Cup qualified him for the Candidates matches, where thanks to victories over Malakhov and Rublevsky he earned a spot in the World Championship Tournament in Mexico (which was won by Anand, Grischuk finished 8th).

With his talent and experience, Grischuk was also a valuable member in many team events, winning numerous prizes with club teams and the Russian national team. Still, one might say that his real ‘international’ breakthrough only came last year. To begin with he won the €100,000 first prize in the Linares super-tournament, thanks to a better tiebreak than Ivanchuk, who scored the same number of points. Then, last December there was a new highlight, when in Moscow he won the Super Final of the Russian Championship ahead of Svidler. Next Grischuk carried his good form into the new year and in January he led the Russian team to victory in the World Team Championship in Bursa, Turkey.

A further success was close when last month he defended his title in Linares and caught up with the leading Topalov with one round to go. But this time it was not to be and in the end he had to settle for second place.

Still, there can be no doubt that with these recent exploits in his fingers, Grischuk will be warmed up for his second Amber.

5. Peter Svidler – Russia

Elo rating: 2750
World ranking: 8
Date of birth: June 17, 1976
Amber highlights: Overall shared fourth in 2007.


Following a two-year interval, Peter Svidler makes his Amber come-back. Small wonder, as the grandmaster from St. Petersburg is the current number 8 in the world rankings and his 2750 rating is only 15 points shy of his all-time best 2765, which he reached three years ago.

For the past fifteen years Peter Svidler has been a steady member of the chess elite, a status that he confirmed with his shared second place at the World Championship Tournament in San Luis in 2005. This classification automatically ensured him of a place in the next World Championship tournament that took place in Mexico City in 2007, where he finished fifth.

Although he is only 33 years old, Svidler can rely on a wealth of experience. His first splash he made in 1994, when at the age of 18 he became Russian champion in Elista. To prove that this victory had not been a coincidence he repeated it in 1995 and 1997. His international breakthrough came in 1997 when he shared first place with Kramnik and Kasparov in Tilburg and defeated the latter in their direct encounter.

Following these first successes he hit a slump from which he only recovered in 2003. He won the Russian championship for the fourth time and was a member of the Russian team that won the European Championship in Plovdiv.

Svidler is a wonderful team player and his wins with the Russian team and club teams in Russia, Germany and France are too many to enumerate. But if we limit us to last year we can mention his part in the Bundesliga championship of Baden-Baden with 7 out of 9 and the 6 out of 8 he scored for new French champion Evry Grand Roque (the club he moved to after the legendary NAO Chess Club from Paris ceased to exist; with NAO Svidler also won three European Club Cups).   

Early last year he won first prize in the GibTelecom Festival in Gibraltar and celebrated an enjoyable stay in Bunratty, Ireland with a second consecutive win. Last summer Svidler was the top-rated player on the Experience team that defeated the Rising Stars at the NH Tournament in Amsterdam and contributed generously (6 out of 10) to their victory. At the Russian Super Final, last December, he finished second behind Grischuk. In his first four Amber tournaments Svidler scored exactly 44 points from 88 games, let’s see what he is up to now.

6. Boris Gelfand – Israel

Elo rating: 2750
World ranking: 9
Date of birth: June 24, 1968
Amber highlights: overall 5th in 2001 and 2002


As the new stars are getting younger and younger, it’s becoming unclear what is the ideal age for a chess grandmaster. Most probably not around 40, as used to be the conviction not so long ago. Unless you’re Boris Gelfand, of course. We remember his delight when the Israeli number one finished shared second in the World Championship Tournament in Mexico in 2007 and a Russian journalist compared him to Paolo Maldini. Just like the Milan football star, who was about his age, Gelfand continued to dedicate himself religiously to his sport and felt that he could still play against the young guard. At that time he was 38, so you can imagine his happiness when last December at the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Gelfand, as the oldest participant, topped a field of 128 eager players. Once again he had shown that motivation and discipline can rival youth and energy.

Gelfand was born in Minsk when Belarus still belonged to the Soviet Union. The first big step in his impressive career was his win in the 1985 Soviet Junior Championship, which he followed up with winning the European Junior Championship. Easily the most memorable achievement in his early career was his win, ahead of 139(!) grandmasters at the Palma de Mallorca GMA World Cup qualifier in 1989.

Gelfand confidently continued to develop into a seasoned world class player who spends most of the time in the world’s top ten. He’s won countless first prizes in international competitions, including top honours in Biel 1993, Dos Hermanas 1994, Belgrade 1995, Vienna 1996, Tilburg 1996 (shared with Jeroen Piket), Polanica Zdroj 1998 and 2000, and Cannes 2002. In 2003 he led the Israeli team to the silver medals at the European Team Championship. Further victories we can mention are his wins in Ashdod 2004, Pamplona 2004, Bermuda 2005 and Biel 2005.
In the super-tournaments in Dortmund and Moscow in 2006 he finished half a point behind the winners.

Last year was another well-filled year. Apart from the World Cup he did well in the Grand Prix tournament in Jermuk, where he finished shared second and also showed strong performances in various team events. He scored 4,5 from 5 in the European Club Cup and 7 from 8 in the Austrian Bundesliga.

Following his win in Khanty-Mansiysk he met with a hero’s welcome in Israel and had to give dozens of interviews to the media. As a result his preparation for Linares last month was patchy and he was rightly unhappy with his play. Two weeks of rest and training before Amber must have gotten him into the right mood again.

7. Vasily Ivanchuk - Ukraine

Elo rating: 2748
World ranking: 11
Date of birth: March 18, 1969
Amber highlights: Overall winner in 1992, 2nd in 1996, 1997, 2000 (shared) and 2002. 


Vasily Ivanchuk is the only player who has taken part in all nineteen Amber tournaments, which says two things. To begin with, that the Ukrainian grandmaster has been a member of the world elite for some twenty years already and secondly, that the affection is mutual. ‘Chuky’, as his colleagues and fans call him, loves the unique atmosphere of the event. In 1992 he was the overall winner and several times he was the runner-up, but even if he struggling with his form every opponent knows that he can wake up any moment and produce a brilliancy.

Ivanchuk is one of the greatest players of modern time, both adored by chess lovers and admired by his fellow-grandmasters, who sometimes speak about ‘Planet Chuky’, to indicate that sometimes he is moving in different spheres. The Ukrainian number one is one of the most active players on the circuit, tirelessly travelling the globe and taking part in one tournament after the other. At 40 (he will celebrate his 41st birthday in Nice!) he is also living proof that ‘older’ players can still play a prominent role at the top of the chess Olympus.

Ivanchuk’s international career took off after he’d won the Junior World Championship in 1988. Already the next year he won the Linares super-tournament for the first time, a win he would repeat in 1991 and 1995 (and in 2009 he scored the same number of points as winner Grischuk). He also won the Tilburg super-tournament in 1990 and in the years that followed he won so many tournaments that even a selection produces a long list: Munich 1994, Horgen 1995, Wijk aan Zee 1996, Belgrade 1997, Tallinn 2000, Malmö 2003, European Championship 2004, Havana 2005, Odessa 2006, Merida 2006, Foros 2007, MTel Masters Sofia 2008, Tal Memorial Moscow 2008. Apart from these classical events he also won the Blitz World Championship in 2007 and the Tal Memorial Blitz in 2008.

A completely different and no less impressive story are his achievements in team competitions. He’s played in eleven Olympiads and three times he was on the team that won the gold medals. Twice, in 1988 and 1990, for the Soviet Union, and once, in 2004, for Ukraine, an achievement that he counts among the dearest in his career.

Returning to his individual results, in the past year he maintained his high level and achieved excellent victories in Bazna and the Jermuk Grand Prix.
We look forward to see him in action in Amber again, both at the chess board and at the ‘shovelboard’, where he is no mean player either!

8. Vugar Gashimov – Azerbaijan

Elo rating: 2740
World ranking: 12
Date of birth: July 24, 1986
Amber highlights: This is his Amber debut


Although he already entered the top-twenty in the summer of 2008 and shot up to 6th place in the world rankings last November, it is safe to say that the public at large knows little or nothing about Vugar Gashimov. Suddenly the 23-year-old grandmaster from Azerbaijan seemed to appear from nowhere and launched himself to the top. Of course, part of his anonymity can be explained by the speed with which he progressed, but there is more. For a long, difficult period he hardly appeared in any tournaments, because the doctors had forbidden him to play a lot of chess.
Gashimov was born in Baku in 1986 and at an early age his prodigious talent for chess was discovered. Playing sparkling, carefree chess he excelled in junior tournaments, mostly beating his closest rivals Radjabov and Guseinov. When he was 12 he took first place in the U-16 section of the Kasparov Cup in Moscow and earned encouraging praise from the Master Himself. And then fate struck. He was treated for epileptic spasms and twice he underwent brain surgery, but nothing helped. Only years later his life took another dramatic turn, this time for the better, when he was operated upon a third time in Bonn, Germany, and a benign tumour was successfully removed from his brain.

In the meantime Gashimov had developed into a more strategic player, playing solid positional chess (although one of his favourite openings is the razor-sharp Benoni). But he is a very strong positional player, as his opponents had to experience. Now things went rapidly. In the spring of  2007 he was still ranked 61st with a rating of 2644, one year on he had already made the jump to number 20 with a rating of 2717. Before the chess world knew it he had joined the elite, peaking on the January list of this year with a formidable 2759 rating.

Gashimov’s international breakthrough cam in 2008 when he won the inaugural Grand Prix tournament in Baku together with Wang Yue and Magnus Carlsen. He continued to play well in the Grand Prix and in the overall GP standings he occupies the fifth position.

Gashimov is also a great team player as his outstanding results in team competitions show. At the Dresden Olympiad he won a silver medal on second board with a score of 6,5 out of 9. Exactly the same score he made at the 2009 European Team Championships in Novi Sad and this time his win in the final round brought Azerbaijan the gold medals.

9. Ruslan Ponomariov – Ukraine

Elo rating: 2737
World ranking: 15
Date of birth: October 11, 1983
Amber highlights: This is his Amber debut.


Ruslan Ponomariov makes his Amber debut at the age of 26, but at this youthful point in his life he can already look back on an eventful career and several records. Born in Horlivka, Ukraine, he was only twelve years old when he won the U-18 European Junior Championship. One year later he gave a further show of his precociousness when he also claimed the
U-18 World Junior title. And in 1998, at the exact age of 14 years and 17 days he became (at that moment) the youngest grandmaster in history.

In the years that followed Ponomariov had encouraging results, such as tournament victory in Torshavn in 2000 and a silver medal on second board for the 8½ from 11 he scored for Ukraine at the 2001 Olympiad in Istanbul, but nothing compared to the splash that he made in the 2002 FIDE World Championship in Moscow. In a 128-player knock-out tournament he managed to reach the final in which he sensationally defeated his compatriot Ivanchuk 4½-2½. This made him the youngest world champion in history, but as the title was decided in a knock-out event and several top players didn’t take part, this record was not generally recognized. Garry Kasparov, the leader in the world rankings at the time, was little impressed by Ponomariov’s feat, but changed his appreciation of his playing strength when the Ukrainian finished second behind him in the ensuing Linares tournament. In an attempt to come to a reunification of the world championship, a match was planned between Kasparov and Ponomariov, which was to be played in 2003. However, the negotiations got bogged down in political and other games behind the scenes and the match never materialized.

This cancellation came as a bog blow for Ponomariov and it is no exaggeration to say that this disappointment had a serious impact on his play for several years. There were many ups and downs and it was only last year that he managed to raise his rating to 2741 again, only two points away from his all-time high seven years earlier. In San Sebastian he showed his best qualities when he finished shared first, scoring 6½ from 9, with Nakamura (only to lose the subsequent blitz play-off). And at the end of the year he once again demonstrated his talent for knock-out events (‘you need not worry about 127 opponents, there are only 7 you have to beat’) when he fought his way to the final of the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, knocking out a.o. Motylev, Bacrot, Gashimov and Malakhov. The fight with Gelfand in the final was long and tense and Ponomariov only succumbed in the blitz play-off.

10. Sergey Karjakin - Russia

Elo rating: 2725
World ranking: 21
Date of birth: January 12, 1990
Amber highlights: In his second Amber in 2009 he finished in 7th place.


Sergey Karjakin comes to Nice for the third time, but it is the first time that he will play under the Russian flag (and as a married man!). Last year the Ukrainian-born grandmaster made a remarkable career move when he decided that henceforth he’d represent Russia. With the support of the Russian Chess Federation he moved to Moscow and he also ‘completed’ his team. Assisted by Kasparov’s former coach Yury Dokhoian and Russia’s team coach Alexander Motylev, Karjakin can now safely be called one of the best organized grandmasters around.

Although he’s ‘already’ twenty years old and may call himself by rights a top grandmaster for quite some time already, Karjakin often continues to be billed as the youngest grandmaster of all time. Which is understandable, as he holds a unique record. He was only twelve years and seven months old when in 2002 he earned the highest chess title.

Karjakin was born in Simferopol in the Crimea on January 12, 1990, and he was five years old when he learned to play chess. He won countless junior championships in his own country and in 2001 he became U-12 Junior World Champion in Oropesa del Mar, Spain. As undeniable proof of his countrymen’s respect for his chess strength, Ruslan Ponomariov invited the 12-year-old prodigy as a second for his World Championship match against Vasily Ivanchuk in the winter of 2002.

Within a few years’ time Karjakin has grown into an experienced grandmaster. In 2004 he was one of the pillars of the Ukrainian team that claimed gold at the Calvia Olympiad. His score of 6,5 out of 7 on Board 4 was the best individual performance of the event. Two years later, in Turin, the Ukrainians had to settle for a more modest result, but Karjakin again chalked up one of the highest scores.
His best individual result so far he had last year in Wijk aan Zee where he won the Corus tournament. At the end of 2009 he also played excellent chess in the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. Before he was knocked out in the semi-finals by Gelfand, he eliminated a.o. Timofeev, Navara and Mamedyarov.

Karjakin made his Amber debut two years ago thanks to his best score on the Rising Stars team at the 2007 NH Chess Tournament in Amsterdam. His first performance, ninth overall, was decent, but it came as no surprise that he improved on that result last year when he finished in 7th place. No doubt the ambitious youngster is aiming for more this time.

11. Leinier Dominguez – Cuba

Elo rating: 2713
World ranking: 27
Date of birth: September 23, 1983
Amber highlights: This is his Amber debut.


Leinier Dominguez makes his debut in the Amber tournament and he is the first Cuban ever to be invited to the blindfold and rapid spectacle. Over the past ten years the Cuban has made unwavering and consistent progress. If you look at his rating progress chart for the last decade you see a line going up steadily until it reaches the 2700 platform in the summer of 2008. On that platform the 26-year-old grandmaster has remained ever since with his rating peaking at 2721 after his fine performance in Wijk aan Zee last year.

Dominguez is clearly the strongest player in the country of Capablanca, as his results at home and in the region show. For instance, at the 2008 Zonal in Santa Domingo he showed his superiority with a final score of 11½ out of 13. The national championship of Cuba he won in 2002, 2003 and 2006. And if you’re wondering why he is not the reigning champion, the answer is because he didn’t take part in the 2009 edition.

Obviously, another important tournament in his resume is the Capablanca Memorial, in memory of Cuba’s greatest chess son. Here Dominguez triumphed in 2004, 2008 and 2009.

Although the geographical distance remains a serious handicap, he obviously also tries to be active in the European tournament circuit. Perhaps his finest result he posted in 2006 in Barcelona, where he scored 8 out of 9 to finish first ahead of Ivanchuk with a performance rating of 2932.

Last year, thanks to his newly acquired 2700 status the invitations for the so-called super-tournaments began to reach him. His first appearance in the 2009 Corus top group could certainly be called a success. With his aggressive style he conquered the hearts of the spectators and had he won his last-round game against Karjakin he would even have come out on top. However, he lost and had to settle for shared fifth with Carlsen. His next appearances in Linares and Sofia were tougher tests. In both events he failed to win a single game and finished with a minus-score.

Apparently he feels more at home in Wijk aan Zee, because this year too he played many an entertaining game and only lost to the ultimate winner Carlsen.

Dominguez is also an excellent blitz player, a talent that will stand him in good stead at the Amber tournament. Clearly his best result in this field was his win at the World Blitz Championship in Almaty in 2008, ahead of Ivanchuk, Svidler and Grischuk.