Sunday, December 18, 2005

Former World Jr Champion Levon Aronian wins World Chess Cup

December 17, 2005
Hindustan Times

Former World Junior Champion Levon Aronian of Armenia comprehensively defeated former World champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine 2-0 in the tie-break games of the final to annex the World Chess Cup that concluded in Khanty Mannsiysk (Russia).

Winning both the games under rapid time control, Aronian stamped his authority on the event and remained the only contestant in this long seven-round grind to remain undefeated.

The superiority of the Armenian can be gauged by the simple fact that he was stretched to the tie-breaker only twice -- once in round four against Spanish hope Francisco Vallejo Pons and next in the finals against Ponomariov.

Besides, Aronian won all the two mini-matches under normal time control games. The success rate of the Armenian was phenomenal as he won as many as seven out of 14 games under normal time control and drew the remaining. In the rapid tie-break games, Aronian scored 3.5/4 overall.

The highest rated Armenian ever went home richer by $80,000 (Appr. Rs 36 lakhs) for his exploits here. Ponomariov, the youngest ever World champion after his triumph in the Moscow World Championship of 2001-2002 had to be content with second place and got $54,000 for his efforts.
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Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.

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