New York Times Blogs, NY
March 29 2008
Aronian Easily Wins Melody Amber
By Dylan Loeb McClain
Levon Aronian of Armenia ran away from the field to capture the
annual Melody Amber tournament, which this year was held in Nice,
France. The tournament ended Thursday. Aronian finished with 14.5
points out of 22, 2.5 points ahead of a logjam of four players in
second: Magnus Carlsen of Norway, Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, Peter
Leko of Hungary and Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. A list of the
participants and the final standings are available on the
tournament’s Web site.
The tournament had two parts: rapid games played at the rate of 25
minutes per player per game, with 10 seconds added to each player’s
clock after each move, and blindfold games in which players typed
their moves into a computer and could see only boards on a screen.
Aronian won so handily because he excelled in both formats, although
particularly in the rapid portion where he finished with 8 points,
1.5 points ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk of the Ukraine.
Aronian’s victory was not a surprise. Over the last few years, he has
established himself as one of the best players in the world, winning
a number of major events. His most significant victories include the
2005 World Cup, the Morelia-Linares super tournament in 2006 (sole
first), the 2006 Tal Memorial in Moscow (tie for first with Leko and
Ruslan Ponomariov of the Ukraine), the 2007 Corus tournament (tie for
first with Topalov and Teimour Radjabov of Azerbaijan), and the 2008
Corus tournament (tie for first with Carlsen). Aronian also won two
candidates matches to earn the right to play in the World
Championship tournament in Mexico City last year.
If there was a surprise, it was the performance of Viswanathan Anand
of India, the world champion. Anand finished in a tie for sixth,
mostly because of his dismal results in the rapid games. Anand has
been considered the best rapid player in the world for more than a
decade, having even won the world rapid championships in Cap d’Agde
in 2003. His performance at Melody Amber was almost certainly his
worst rapid result ever.
A bit less surprising was how Alexander Morozevich and Vladimir
Kramnik of Russia did in the blindfold segment. Both are blindfold
experts and usually distance themselves from the rest of the field.
This year, they finished in a tie for the lead in the blindfold games
with Topalov and Aronian. Aronian even beat Morozevich in their
blindfold game.
An unusual feature of the event was that most of the fireworks
occurred in the rapid games, not the blindfold ones. Normally, the
biggest mistakes and most dramatic victories are in blindfold games
because players forget where some pieces are. That was not true this
year as some of the shortest games were rapid ones, including
Aronian’s victory over Topalov in Round 7, Boris Gelfand of Israel’s
win over Anand in Round 10, and Ivanchuk’s win over Topalov in Round
11.
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