YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 17, ARMENPRESS. The leader of the Armenian men’s chess team Levon Aronian occupies the 5th position after the three rounds of the Zurich Chess Challenge 2015 Super Tournament. Currently Aronian has 2 points in his active, while Hikaru Nakamura (USA) took the lead with 5 points. Viswanathan Anand (India) has 4 points, Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) 3. In the next round Aronian will face with Fabiano Caruana (Italy).

The Catalan is an interesting opening in chess fashion. Sometimes it seems like it is the only 1.d4 opening that is being played, while at other time it seems completely abandoned. The Catalan is not exactly at its peak of popularity, mainly because Black has figured out more than one way to nearly equalize (most prominently the ideas of a quick Bb4+ followed by Be7 instead of trading bishops on d2). That being said, if there are two people in this World that can bring new spice into the Catalan, they are Aronian and Kramnik... it just so happens that they faced each other today!

It's clear that Big Vlad did not equalize fully from the opening; Aronian's pressure kept mounting all over the board and his control over the d-file was more than annoying. With a good sequence he placed his pieces in perfect squares, first winning a pawn and then trading it for domination over the board and good chances to attack the enemy king.

Kramnik defended cleverly; he sacrificed his pawn again and traded queens. The resulting two pawns against one on the kingside gave White some chances to win, but not many. The Russian defended comfortably and earned his draw.

Levon 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.

Levon Aronian was declared the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005 and was awarded the title of "Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia" in 2009.

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.