The Armenian national team became the champion of the World Youth U16 Olympiad in Burdur, Turkey,

Il team armeno dei ragazzi vince a Burdur, in Turchia, alle Olimpiadi di Scacchi dei Gioveni Under 16............
"Sentire l'inno armeno e vedere sventolare la bandiera dell'Armenia in Turchia davanti un pubblico in piedi che applaudiva ci ha riempito di un immenso orgoglio.." ha dichiarato uno dei ragazzi al suo rientro in patria.

Poche settimane fà Levon Aronian vinse il titolo mondiale di Blitz Championship..(articolo, di seguito)

Scacchi:

The Armenian national team became the champion of the World Youth U16 Olympiad in Burdur, Turkey, after beating Syria 3-1 on Friday.


The team (players Karen H. Grigoryan, Robert Aghasaryan, Hovhannes Gabuzyan, Davit Shahinyan, Tigran S. Petrosyan, coached by Arsen Yegiazarian) stayed unbeaten throughout the tournament and secured first place one round before the end of competition on December 4.

Besides the final triumph over Syria, Armenia beat Turkmenistan, Russia, Portugal, Belarus, India, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. In the last round on Saturday, Armenia drew against Turkey-White 2-2, gathering a total of 30.5 points (3 points ahead of second-placed India and third-placed Russia). A total of 22 teams had taken part in the tournament.

All results and standings are available at WYCO’s website http://wyco2010.tsf.org.tr/

This is the second time Armenia has won the title of World Youth Olympiad Champion.



Aronian wins World Blitz Championship



Levon Aronian today won the 2010 World Blitz Championship in Moscow, Russia. The Armenian scored 24.5 points out of 38 games and finished half a point ahead of Teimour Radjabov from Azerbaijan. Third came Magnus Carlsen from Norway, who won the title in 2009. First video, audio clip Aronian and many photos.


The World Blitz Championship took place at the GUM department store on Red Square in Moscow, from 16 to 18 November. It was a 20-player, double round-robin tournament with 14 rounds on the first day, 14 on the second and 10 on the final day. The rate of play for all games was 3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment.

Since last year’s winner Magnus Carlsen picked lot number 20 at the drawing of lots, and Hikaru Nakamura got number 1, the two big favorites already met in the very first round. The American grandmaster had never played in the World Blitz before, but is known to be very strong in quickplay and in fact defeated Carlsen in a tournament in Norway last year. However, this time it was Carlsen who won this psychologically important first game.

Carlsen finished on 10/14 on the first day, the same score as Levon Aronian. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov also had an excellent first day, and finished only half a point behind the two leaders. Hikaru Nakamura, a favourite to win the title for many, had a terrible start with three losses in the first three games (against Carlsen, Kramnik and Vachier-Lagrave). Eventually the American finished on a decent 7.5/14 to stay in the race.

On the second day, just before the end, Nakamura seemed to be on his way back with a convincing victory against Levon Aronian. Here’s his summary of the game as an audio clip, followed by the game itself:

The junior team were also champs in 1998 when future board masters Levon Aronian, Gabriel Sargissian, Tigran L. Petrosian and Varuzhan Akobian were playing.

S.M