Amber 2011 R6: Aronian keeps lead despite losing to Grischuk, Anand loses to Ivanchuk

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

As expected, exciting chess at the 20th Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament that is taking place Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort in Monaco, from March 11 to 25, 2011. The tournament is organised by the Association Max Euwe of chess maecenas Joop van Oosterom, which is based in Monaco. This 20th Amber tournament is the final edition of an event unparalleled in the history of chess. The total prize-fund is € 227,000. The rate of play is 25 minutes per game per player. With every move made in the blindfold games 20 seconds is added to the clock, with every move made in the rapid games 10 seconds is added.

In Round 6, despite a 0.5-1.5 loss to Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian maintained his lead in the general standings. Magnus Carlsen is now one point behind the Armenian with his 1.5-0.5 win over Sergey Karjakin, while the talk of the sixth round was Vishy Anand's loss with the same score to Vassily Ivanchuk.

Here are the standings after Round 6 and a video.

Friday, March 18, Round 6
14.30	Blindfold	Gelfand ½-½ Nakamura	Grischuk ½-½ Aronian	Anand ½-½ Ivanchuk
16.00		Topalov ½-½ Gashimov	Kramnik ½-½ Giri	Karjakin ½-½ Carlsen
17.45	Rapid	Nakamura 0-1 Gelfand	Aronian 0-1 Grischuk	Ivanchuk 1-0 Anand
19.15		Gashimov 1-0 Topalov	Giri 0-1 Kramnik	Carlsen 1-0 Karjakin

Standings after the sixth round

Blindfold		Rapid		Combined
1. Aronian 4½ 2. Anand 3½ Gelfand 3½ Grischuk 3½ 3. Carlsen 3 Gashimov 3 Karjakin 3 4. Giri 2½ Ivanchuk 2½ Nakamura 2½ Topalov 2½ 5. Kramnik 2		1. Carlsen 4½ 2. Aronian 4 3. Anand 3½ Grischuk 3½ 4. Ivanchuk 3 Kramnik 3 Topalov 3 5. Gashimov 2½ Gelfand 2½ Karjakin 2½ Nakamura 2½ 6. Giri 1½		1. Aronian 8½ 2. Carlsen 7½ 3. Anand 7 Grischuk 7 4. Gelfand 6 5. Gashimov 5½ Ivanchuk 5½ Karjakin 5½ Topalov 5½ 6. Kramnik 5 Nakamura 5 7. Giri 4

You can find detailed reports on all the games at the official website here.

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