Aronian Wins In Style
By Arvind Aaron
The strongest Amber Tournament to date in terms of rating average of the
12 players has ended in a triumph for Levon Aronian of Armenia.
It had a new venue in Nice, south of France from the traditional venue of
Monte Carlo in Monaco. The event ran from March 15-27 and had the same
luxury surrounding it like in the previous sixteen editions.
The Kramnik v Anand rapid chess game was one of the best games from this
event and it came in the very first round.
To win such a strong event with a 2.5-point margin and a round to spare is
certainly a big achievement for 25-year old Aronian. He was in India a
couple of times, also winning the World Junior at Goa in 2002.
Anand had problems with the blindfold at the start and rapid chess in the
end. However, this interchanged towards the end. The reason perhaps could
be motivation after winning a big event like Linares.
The final placings (combined): 1 Levon Aronian (Arm) 14.5/22, 2-5 Vladimir
Kramnik (Rus), Peter Leko (Hun), Veselin Topalov (Bul), Magnus Carlsen
(Nor) 12 each, 6-8 Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukr), Viswanathan Anand (Ind),
Alexander Morozevich (Rus) 11 each, 9 Sergey Karjakin (Ukr) 9.5, 10-12
Boris Gelfand (Isr), Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Aze), Loek Van Wely (Ned) 8
each.
The final placings (blindfold) : 1-4 Kramnik, Aronian, Morozevich, Topalov
6.5/11 each, 5-9 Leko, Anand, Carlsen, Karjakin, Van Wely 5 each, 10-11
Ivanchuk, Mamedyarov 4.5 each, 12 Gelfand 3.
The final placings (rapid): 1 Aronian 8, 2 Ivanchuk 6.5, 3-5 Gelfand, Leko,
Carlsen 6 each, 6-7 Kramnik, Topalov 5.5 each, 8 Anand 5, 9-11 Mamedyarov,
Morozevich, Karjakin 4.5 each, 12 Van Wely 4.
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Published on
29th March, 2008
