YEREVAN, AUGUST 27, ARMENPRESS. The matches of Sinquefield Cup, 4th tour took place in Saint Louis, USA where Grand Master Levon Aronian had his second victory. Aronian played with black pieces. Thanks to his beautiful and accurate game he defeated Wesley So. His opponent surrendered on 28 move.

“Armenpress” reports that the other matches ended in a tie. Aronian is on the list of leaders with 3 points.

Levon Grigori Aronian (born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess Grandmaster. On the March 2014 FIDE rating list, he was ranked number two in the world and had an Elo rating of 2830, making him the fourth 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 Chess 960 Champion in 2006 and 2007, World Rapid Chess Champion in 2009, and World Blitz Chess Champion in 2010.

Aronian has been the leading Armenian chess player since the early 2000s. His popularity in Armenia has led to him being called a celebrity, and a hero. He was named 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 was born on 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia (then part of the Soviet Union), to Seda Aronova-Avagyan, an Armenian mining engineer, and Grigory Leontievich Aronov, a Jewish physicist. Talking about his background, Aronian stated in an interview, "I feel much more Armenian than Jewish, although there are sides to me which are more Jewish culturally, involving the arts and music."

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.