Aronian Defeats World Chess Champ Carlsen

Levon Aronian

YEREVAN (Armenpress)—The leader of the Armenian national men’s chess team Levon Aronian claimed victory over world champ Magnus Carlsen in the rapid chess tournament being held in Zurich, Switzerland and came in third in overall in that specific competition.

Rapid chess games were held on the last day of the special tournament of Zurich. In the first round Aronian defeated Vishy Anand, then went on to beat the current world champ Magnus Carlsen. In the third round the Armenian Grandmaster played with blacks and shared the point with Boris Gelfand. In the round with the strongest chess player of the USA Hikaru Nakamura Aronian was defeated. In the last round he shared the point with Fabiano Caruana.

Levon Aronian gained 3 points in the Rapid Chess Tournament and held the third place. Italian Fabiano Caruana is in the first place with 4 points. Hikaru Nakamura holds the second place with 3.5 points.

Levon Grigori Aronian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster. On the May 2012 FIDE list, he was ranked number two in the world and had an Elo rating of 2825, making him the third highest rated player in history.

Aronian won the Chess World Cup 2005. He led the Armenian national team to the Gold medals in the 2006 (Turin), 2008 (Dresden) and 2012 (Istanbul) Chess Olympics and at the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo 2011. He won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012, where he was knocked out in the first round. He was also World Chess960 Champion in 2006 and 2007, World Rapid Chess Champion in 2009, and World Blitz Chess Champion in 2010.

Aronian was declared the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005 and was awarded the title of “Honored Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia” in 2009.

Aronian was born on October 6, 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia, to Seda Sarkisovna, an Armenian mining engineer, and Grigory Leontievich, a Jewish physicist. He was taught to play chess by his sister Lilit at the age of nine. His first coach was the Grandmaster Melikset Khachiyan. An early sign of his ability came when he won the 1994 World Youth Chess Championship (under-12) in Szeged with 8/9, ahead of future luminaries Étienne Bacrot, Ruslan Ponomariov, Francisco Vallejo Pons, and Alexander Grischuk.

Aronian holds a diploma from the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture.