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YEREVAN, JANUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. The leader of the Armenian Men’s Chess Team Levon Aronian held no special preparations for the match against 17-year old chess player Richard Rapport. The match ended in a draw.
As reports “Armenpress” citing chess-news website, the Armenian GM noticed that taking into account his opponent's unusual opening preferences, he didn't spent a lot of time on preparation for the game. Among other things Aronian noted: "I wanted to maintain my mind fresh." Levon said he might have been too optimistic at the start of the game: after 5...g5 and 6...Ne4 the position "looks interesting" for White.
Levon also said that he plans to stay in Amsterdam after the round which will be played at the museum. "I like that museum, it's excellent. There are many works by the great artists. I've been there twice before.
I am not against of five rest days, but I think four free days were enough; however, that is the organizers’ decision, maybe they want more quality games and that's why they decided to make more rest days," Levon Aronian noted.
Aronian’s next opponent is Hikaru Nakamura.
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.
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.