Levon Aronyan takes 2nd horizontal at FIDE ranking

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS: In the FIDE November rankings Levon Aronyan took the second horizontal. Armenpress reports that the leader is the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen with 2870 points. The strongest chess player of Armenia Levon Aronyan has 2801 points. The top 10 includes Vladimir Kramnik, Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Grischuk, Fabiano Caruana, Boris Gelfand, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov and Shakhriyar Mamedov.

It is worth mentioning that the current world champion Viswanathan Anand places the 8th with 2775 points.

In the top 10 of the world’s best chess players another four Armenians are included: Sergey Movsisyan places the 49th with 2700 points, Vladimir Hakobyan – 63rd with 2681, Gabriel Sargsyan – 71st with 2676 and Tigran Petrosyan – 89th with 2660 points. The French Armenian chess player Tigran Karamyan places the 91st with 2658 points.

In the FIDE October rankings Aronyan was in the third horizontal. He withdrew with 18 points. The second place was occupied with Vladimir Kramnik. The leader of the ranking was again Magnus Carlsen.

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.