Levon Aronyan celebrates first victory in Grand Slam

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 11, ARMENPRESS: The leader of the Armenian National Chess Men team Levon Aronyan won Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Grand Slam 6th tournament (Chess Masters Final) taking place on October 7-13 2013 in Bilbao, Spain. Armenpress reports that in the fourth round of the tournament Levon Aronyan won Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on the 56th move.

The tournament will have six rounds.

In the FIDE October rankings Levon Aronyan was on the third horizontal. The Armenian Grand Master had 2795 points.

Aronyan was born on 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia.An early sign of his ability came when he won the 1994World Youth Chess Championship(under-12) inSzegedwith 8/9, ahead of future luminariesÉtienne Bacrot,Ruslan Ponomariov,Francisco Vallejo Pons, andAlexander Grischuk. Aronyan was declared the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005and was awarded the title of "Honored Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia" in 2009.

Aronyan won theChess World Cup 2005. He led the Armenian national team to the Gold medals in the2006 (Turin),2008 (Dresden) and2012 (Istanbul)Chess Olympicsand at theWorld Team Chess ChampionshipinNingbo2011. He won theFIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for theWorld Chess Championship 2012, where he was knocked out in the first round. He was also WorldChess960Champion in 2006 and 2007,World Rapid Chess Championin 2009, andWorld Blitz Chess Championin 2010.

Aronyan holds a diploma from theArmenian State Institute of Physical Culture.

Aronyan played for Armenia in theChess Olympiadsof 1996, 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010.He took team bronze medal in 2004 and team gold medal in 2006, 2008 and 2012. In the2010 Chess Olympiadhe won the silver medal for his individual performance on board one.He was a member of the gold-medal winning Armenian team at theWorld Team Chess Championshipin 2011.