Aronian Takes the World Cup, but There Are 10 Real Winners

January 1, 2006
New York Times
By ROBERT BYRNE

The FIDE World Cup competition in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, which serves as a qualifier for the candidates' stage of the world championship, has concluded, with Levon Aronian of Armenia taking first place. All 10 of the top finishers will now go on to further qualifying contests to pick the winner.

The remaining qualifiers are Ruslan Ponomariov, Etienne Bacrot, Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Bareev, Boris Gelfand, Sergei Rublevsky, Mikhail Gurevich, Gata Kamsky and Magnus Carlsen.

Aronian captured first place by defeating Ponomariov in a final-round tiebreak. However, it must be stressed that because of the curious system used, all 10 of these players go on from here as equals. Aronian's success up to this point is really hardly more than a morale builder.
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