World rapid champion Viswanathan Anand starts as hot favourite for his back-to-back triumph in the 13th edition of Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament that begins at Monte Carlo Grand Hotel in Monaco, France on Saturday.

Anand will start his campaign against Russian champion Peter Svidler who is seeded third. The Indian ace will first play the blindfold game against Svidler with white pieces and then has black in the rapid game that follows late in the evening.

The list of participants in this year addition continues to be as impressive as ever with seven of the world's top ten  present here.

The top seed is Braingames champion Vladimir Kramnik of  Russia but his chances for a top prize will depend on his performance in the rapid section where he managed to make just 5 points of 11 in the previous edition. However, Kramnik is a great expert in the blindfold and won it last year comprehensively with 8/11.

Apart from Kramnik, Anand and Svidler, the likes of  Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Russian duo of Alexander Morozevich and Evgeny Bareev, Hungarian Peter Leko, Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk, Boris Gelfand of Israel, Spaniards Alexei Shirov and Francisco Vallejo Pons and Dutchman Leok van Wely will compete for a huge prize pool of 1,93,500 euros (over Rs 1 crore).

 The tournament falls under category 19 according to FIDE rating charts with an average rating of 2719.5.

The Amber tournament that started in 1992 has seen a certain upsurge in its popularity with the cream of the World  Chess taking part in it. The only exception is World's top rated Garry Kasparov who has been giving it a miss.

The tournament has a very interesting format with one blindfold and one rapid game in each round. The players will alternate their colour's in each game. The blindfold games will be played on computer with the players able to see only  the last move on their respective screens on an empty chessboard.

Anand had a terrific run in the event last year when he put up a steady performance in both variants of the game to  become the overall champion for the third time tallying 14.5 points out of a possible 22.

In both the sections, Anand finished second but that was enough for him to be a full point adrift of Russian Alexander Morozevich and Hungarian Peter Leko who finished joint second.

List of participants with FIDE ratings:

Vladimir Kramnik (Russia, 2777), Anand (India, 2766), Peter Svidler (Russia, 2747), Alexei Shirov (Spain, 2736),  Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria, 2735), Alexander Morozevich (Russia, 2732), Peter Leko (Hungary, 2722), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine, 2716), Evgeny Bareev (Russia, 2714), Boris Gelfand (Israel, 2709), Francisco Vallejo (Spain, 2663) and Leok van Wely (the Netherlands, 2617).

Final Standings of 2003:

Combined: 1. Anand 14.5; 2-3. Leko, Morozevich 13.5 each; 4-5. Kramnik, Topalov 13.0 each; 6. Gelfand 12.0; 7. Shirov 11.5; 8. Bareev 11.0; 9. Almasi 9.5; 10. Ivanchuk 9.0; 11. Van Wely 8.0; 12. Ljubojevic 3.5.

Blindfold: 1. Kramnik 8.0; 2. Morozevich, Anand 7.0; 4. Gelfand 6.5; 5. Leko, Topalov 6.0 each; 7. Shirov 5.5; 8-10. Ivanchuk, Almasi, Van Wely 5.0 each; 11. Bareev 3.0; 12. Ljubojevic 2.0. 

Rapid: 1. Bareev 8.0; 2-3. Anand, Leko 7.5; 4. Topalov 7.0; 5. Morozevich 6.5; 6. Shirov 6.0; 7. Gelfand 5.5; 8.  Kramnik 5.0; 9. Almasi 4.5; 10. Ivanchuk 4.0; 11. Van Wely 3.0; 12. Ljubojevic 1.5.