Greetings Chess Players. My name is Chris Torres and this is my daily chess musing for Saturday, February 27, 2021.
Chess grandmaster Levon Aronian announced that he is leaving Armenia and will represent the United States for chess, citing what he said was Armenian officials’ indifference to chess as one of the reasons.
“The past year has been very difficult for all of us with a pandemic, a war and in my case there was personal adversity and the state’s absolute indifference towards Armenian chess,” he wrote, referring to the Covid-19, six weeks of military fighting in his homeland, the tragic death of his wife following a car accident and the drop in government support for chess in Armenia.
Rated at 2781, Levon Aronian would be the number-two ranked American player behind Fabiano Caruana (2823) and just ahead of Wesley So (2770) and Leinier Domínguez (2758.) However, the process of transferring federations through FIDE requires a two year waiting period that starts from when the transferring player last competed in a FIDE event under their previous federation and also submitted proof to FIDE of residence in their new country. Because of these requirements, it will be some time before Levon Aronian is sporting the American flag at his chessboard. Still, it’s a huge victory for American chess to have acquired another player ranked in the top ten internationally.
So to celebrate, let’s take a look at Aronian’s brilliant victory over Grandmaster David Navara as explained by Woman Grandmaster and fellow Armenian-American Tatev Abrahamyan.
Tatev Twitctch: twitch.tv/tatev_A
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To watch the entire Guest Lecture: