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Levon Aronian
Full name	Levon Aronian
Country	Armenia
Born	6 October 1982 (1982-10-06) (age 27) Yerevan, Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR
Title	Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2781 (No. 5 on the January 2010 FIDE ratings list)
Peak rating	2786 (November 2009)

This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.

Levon Aronian (Armenian: Լևոն Արոնյան; born 6 October 1982 in Yerevan) is an Armenian chess Grandmaster. On the November 2009 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2786, making him number four in the world and Armenia's number one.^[1]

Aronian won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2009, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2011. He is also the 2009 World Rapid Chess Champion.^[2]

Career

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 Etienne Bacrot, Ruslan Ponomariov, Francisco Vallejo Pons and Alexander Grischuk.

In 2002 he won the Armenian Chess Championship.^[3]

In the same year he became World Junior Champion, scoring 10/13 and finishing ahead of Surya Ganguly, Artyom Timofeev, Luke McShane, Bu Xiangzhi, Pentala Harikrishna and others.

In 2004 he progressed to the third round of the 2004 FIDE World Championship before being knocked out by Pavel Smirnov.

Levon Aronian became part of the international elite in 2005, shooting up to fifth place in the world. In 2005 he was part of a five-way tie for first place at the Gibtele.com Masters in Gibraltar with Zahar Efimenko, Kiril Georgiev, Alexei Shirov and Emil Sutovsky. He was the sole winner of the Karabakh 2005 International "A" Tournament.^[4] In the Russian Team Championship, he scored +5 =3 -0 with an Elo performance rating of around 2850. In December he beat Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the final round to win the World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia. After a draw in two regular games, Aronian won both Rapid games to win the event and emerge undefeated in seven rounds.

In March 2006 he took sole first place at the annual Linares chess tournament, half a point ahead of Teimour Radjabov and FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov. In 2006 he also tied for first in the Tal Memorial. The April-July 2006 FIDE rating list ranked Aronian the number three player in the world.^[5]

In January 2007 Aronian shared first place at the category 19 Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee along with Veselin Topalov and Radjabov. In May 2007 he defeated World Champion Vladimir Kramnik 4-2 in a rapid chess match.^[6]

His 2005 World Cup victory qualified him for the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship 2007, being played in May-June 2007. In this tournament he played GM Magnus Carlsen, and they tied 3-3 in the initial six games, then 2-2 in rapid chess, and finally Aronian won 2-0 at blitz chess. In the finals, he defeated Shirov 3.5-2.5. This qualified him for the final stage of the championship, which was played in Mexico. There, he scored only 6 points out of 14, finishing seventh out of eight players.

In January 2008 he won the prestigious Corus chess tournament jointly with Magnus Carlsen, scoring 8/13.^[7]

In March 2008 he won the Melody Amber blindfold/rapid tournament held in Nice, France, 2½ points ahead of the other nearest competitors.^[8] Apart from his first place win in the overall tournament, he also took sole first place in the Rapid section of the tournament (winning by a margin of 1½ points) and shared first place in the Blindfold section with three other chess grandmasters: Kramnik, Morozevich, and Topalov.

Aronian won the Karen Asrian Memorial rapid chess tournament in Yerevan in June 2008. He finished 8.5/14 ahead of Peter Leko.

In March 2009 he won the 18th Melody Amber blindfold/rapid tournament held in Nice, France for the second time, scoring a combined 14 points in 22 games.

Aronian played in the FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2009, and won the Grand Prix with one tournament to go, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2011.

On August 3, 2009 Aronian won the World Rapid Chess Championship.^[2]

In December 2009, he was awarded the title of "Honoured master of sport of the Republic of Armenia".^[9]

Chess960

In 2003 Aronian won the Finet Chess960 open at Mainz; this qualified him for a match against Chess960 World Champion Peter Svidler at Mainz the following year, a match which he lost 4.5-3.5. He won the Finet Chess960 open tournament again in 2005 which earned him a rematch with Svidler in 2006, and won the match this time 5-3 to become Chess960 World Champion.

In 2007 he successfully defended his title of Chess960 World Champion by beating Viswanathan Anand. He lost the title in 2009 to Hikaru Nakamura.

Personal life

As of the end of 2009, his girlfriend is Australian Woman International Master Arianne Caoili.^[10][11]

Notable games

Aronian (Black) defeats a strong GM in 19 moves.

Aronian, as Black, defeats GM Ivan Sokolov (2676) in 19 moves, using all of 10½ minutes on his clock to do so [1]: I. Sokolov-Aronian, Chess Olympiad, Turin 2006 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5 c5!? 7.dxc5 h6 8.Bh4 g5 9.Bg3 Ne4 10.Bxb8!? (10.e3; 10.Be5) Qf6! (10...Rxb8?? 11.Qa4+ +-) 11.Bg3 Nxc3 12.a3 Bf5! 13.Qd2 Ba5 14.b4? Ne4 15.Qc1 Rc8!! 16.Ra2?! Rxc5 17.Qa1 (see diagram at right) Qc6! The threat of back-rank mate is crushing. 18.Qe5+ Kd8 19.Qxh8+ Kd7 0-1 If 20.e3, Rc1+ 21.Ke2 Bg4+! and 22...Qc4# (based on analysis by A.J. Goldsby)

References

External links

• FIDE rating card for Levon Aronian
• Levon Aronian player profile at ChessGames.com
• Levon Aronian at 365Chess.com
• OlimpBase
• Biography of Levon Aronian
• Interview with Levon Aronian
• Aronian Interview: Hey Ladies...