Levon Grigori Aronian is an Armenian chess grandmaster.
54 Facts About Levon Aronian
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Levon Aronian is a former world rapid and blitz champion and has held the No 2 position in the March 2014 FIDE world chess rankings with a rating of 2830, becoming the fourth-highest rated player in history.
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Levon Aronian led the Armenian national team to the gold medals in the Chess Olympiads of 2006,2008 and 2012 and at the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo 2011.
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Levon Aronian was world champion in Chess960 in 2006 and 2007, in rapid chess in 2009, and in blitz chess in 2010.
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Levon Aronian 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.
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Levon Aronian announced his decision to transfer from the Armenian chess federation to the United States federation in late February 2021, citing a decline in government support for the sport as his motivation.
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Levon Aronian was born on 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia, to Seda Avagyan, an Armenian mining engineer, and Grigory Leontievich Aronov, a Russian Jewish physicist from the Vitebsk Region, Belarus.
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Levon Aronian holds a diploma from the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture.
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In 2001, Levon Aronian scored seven out of nine in the Cappelle-la-Grande Open, half a point behind the joint winners Einar Gausel and Vladimir Chuchelov.
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Levon Aronian made his debut at the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2004.
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Levon Aronian progressed to the third round, where he lost to Pavel Smirnov.
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Levon Aronian became part of the international elite in 2005, rated tenth in the world by Elo rating.
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In March 2006, Levon Aronian won the annual Linares chess tournament, half a point ahead of Teimour Radjabov and then-World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov.
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In January 2007, Levon Aronian shared first place at the category 19 Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee along with Veselin Topalov and Radjabov.
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In June 2008, Levon Aronian won the Karen Asrian Memorial Rapid chess tournament in Yerevan.
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Levon Aronian won the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden with the Armenia national chess team, winning gold for the second time in a row.
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On 2 August 2009, Levon Aronian won the World Rapid Chess Championship.
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In December 2009, Levon Aronian was awarded the title of "Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia".
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In September 2010, Levon Aronian played in the preliminary stage of the Bilbao Grand Slam in Shanghai against Vladimir Kramnik, Alexei Shirov, and Wang Hao, but could not qualify for the final tournament after losing to Kramnik.
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Levon Aronian won the 2010 World Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow.
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In November 2011, Levon Aronian played in the Tal Memorial in Moscow in a round robin with ten players.
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In January 2012, Levon Aronian competed in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee; the field included world No 1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Hikaru Nakamura, and former world champion Veselin Topalov, among others.
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Levon Aronian had a tournament performance rating of 2891, taking first place ahead of Carlsen, Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana.
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The Bilbao Chess Masters Final 2012 took place in October, in which Levon Aronian came in third place.
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In December 2012, Levon Aronian competed in the London Chess Classic, coming in sixth place with one win, 5 draws and 2 losses.
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Levon Aronian participated in the 2014 Zurich Chess Challenge and tied for second place, along with Fabiano Caruana.
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Levon Aronian played in the 2014 Candidates Tournament, and finished tied second to last.
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Levon Aronian played in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands.
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Levon Aronian participated in the Grand Chess Tour, a series of three super tournaments in which players try to accumulate the most Grand Chess Tour points through the three tournaments.
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Levon Aronian played in the Chess World Cup 2015, a knockout chess tournament played in Baku, Azerbaijan.
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Levon Aronian was eliminated in Round 2 by Grandmaster Alexander Areschenko.
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Levon Aronian played in the European Chess Club Cup for Team Siberia Novosibirsk.
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Levon Aronian scored 5 draws out of the 5 games he played in the event.
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In December 2015, Levon Aronian played in the final leg of the Grand Chess Tour, the London Chess Classic.
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On 16 June 2017, Levon Aronian won the fifth edition of the Norway Chess Tournament, beating Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Sergey Karjakin.
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In September 2017, Levon Aronian won the World Cup, and in doing so qualified for the Candidates Tournament for the 2018 World Chess Championship.
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In November 2017, Levon Aronian won the gold medal for individual performance in the European Team Chess Championship.
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From 31 March to 9 April 2018, Levon Aronian competed in the 5th Grenke Chess Classic.
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Levon Aronian reached the quarter finals in the Chess World Cup 2019 held in Khanty-Mansiysk.
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Levon Aronian scored a total of 17.5 points, which earned him 3rd place.
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In February 2021, Levon Aronian announced in a press release from the Saint Louis Chess Club that he would be switching federations from Armenia to the United States of America on the basis, among other things, of "the state's absolute indifference towards Armenian chess" and the ongoing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Levon Aronian played for Armenia in the Chess Olympiads of 1996,2004,2006,2008,2010, and 2012.
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Levon Aronian took team bronze medal in 2004 and team gold medal in 2006,2008 and 2012.
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Levon Aronian was a member of the gold medal-winning Armenian team at the World Team Chess Championship in 2011, where he won the silver medal on board one.
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Levon Aronian again competed for Armenia in the 2013 World Team Chess Championship, where he won the gold medal on board one.
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Levon Aronian broke the 2800 rating barrier in the November 2010 FIDE world ranking with a rating of 2801.
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Levon Aronian is the sixth player to cross the 2800 rating mark, after Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, and Magnus Carlsen.
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Levon Aronian lost the title in 2009 to Hikaru Nakamura.
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In 2019 Levon Aronian participated in the Chess960 event The Champions Showdown 9LX.
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Levon Aronian achieves this result thanks to his rare intuition in the sharpest positions.
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In 2012, together with Gabriel Sargissian, Levon Aronian founded a chess school in Yerevan, where the most talented chess players between the ages of 10 and 18 can study.
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Levon Aronian started dating Filipino-Australian Woman International Master Arianne Caoili in 2008.
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On 30 March 2020, Levon Aronian revealed on his Twitter account that Caoili had died.
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Levon Aronian is currently engaged to Ani Ayvazyan, an international literature major at the American University of Armenia.