Levon Aronian

Infobox chess player
playername = Levon Aronian


caption=
birthname = Levon Aronian
country = ARM
datebirth = birth date and age|1982|10|6|df=y
placebirth = Yerevan, Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR
datedeath =
placedeath =
title = Grandmaster
worldchampion =
womensworldchampion =
rating = 2737
(No. 12 on the July 2008 FIDE ratings list)
peakrating = 2763 (April 2008)

Levon Aronian ( _hy. Լևոն Արոնյան; born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess player. On the April 2008 FIDE list, he had an ELO rating of 2763, making him number six in the world and Armenia's number one. He was born in Yerevan.

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

In 2004 he progressed to the 3rd 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. 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.

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. [ [http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3838 Drama in Yerevan – Aronian wins Rapid match 4:2] , Chessbase, 7-May-2007]

His 2005 World Cup victory qualified him for the Candidates Tournament of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2007, being played in May-June 2007. In this tournament he played GM Magnus Carlsen, and they played 3-3 in the initial six games, then 2-2 in the rapid chess, and finally Levon Aronian won 2-0 in the blitz chess. After this victory he met Alexei Shirov in the finals, who he defeated 3.5-2.5 in 6 games. This qualified him for the final stage of the championship, which was played in Mexico. Aronian scored 6 points out of 14 and finished 7th out of 8 players.

In January 2008 he won the prestigious Corus chess tournament jointly with Magnus Carlsen, scoring 8/13. [ [http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4417 Wijk R13: Aronian, Carlsen win Wijk aan Zee 2008] , Chessbase, 27.01.2008] .

In March 2008 he won the Melody Amber blindfold/rapid tournament held in Nice, France, 2½ points ahead of the other nearest competitors. [ [http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4536 Melody Amber: Aronian wins with 2½ point lead] , Chessbase, 27.03.2008] 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 1.5 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.

Aronian is playing in the FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2009 (a qualifying stage for the World Chess Championship 2011), and has maximum points after winning the first Grand Prix tournament he played in.

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.

Notable games

Chess diagram|=
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| | | |kd| | |rd|=
pd|pd| | | |pd| | |=
| | | | |qd| |pd|=
bd| |rd|pd| |bd|pd| |=
|pl| | |nd| | | |=
pl| | | | | |bl| |=
rl| | | |pl|pl|pl|pl|=
ql| | | |kl|bl|nl|rl|=
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 [http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary.htm] : 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 [http://www.geocities.com/lifemasteraj/miniature007.html A.J. Goldsby] )

References

External links

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* [http://www.coruschess.com/participants.php?year=2007&group=1&bio=4 Biography of Levon Aronian]
* [http://www.olimpbase.org/players/8yc46a0e.html OlimpBase]
* [http://chess.vrsac.com/search/player_e.asp?FC=13300474 Rating data]