LEVON ARONIAN, VLADIMIR HAKOBIAN TO PARTICIPATE IN FIDE GRAND PRIX SERIES TOURNAMENT
PanARMENIAN.Net
04.04.2009 12:13 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ 14 top-grandmasters, including Armenia’s Levon
Aronian and Vladimir Hakobian, will take part in the fourth FIDE Grand
Prix series tournament in the Republic of Kabardino Balkaria in Russia.
The fourth FIDE Grand Prix will be the strongest one in the series,
and one of the strongest tournaments of the world this year. New
functions on the FIDE website allow us to see the current rating
changes of top-grandmasters. The average rating of the tournament in
Nalchik will be around 2725 points based on the April 2009 list to
be published soon. Previously the highest average rated tournament
was held in the third stage of the series, Elista (2715 points).
The tournament is so evenly balanced that everyone of the 14
participants who comes to Nalchik is in a good position to win the
tournament. The top-rated player of the competition is the World Cup
2005 and Olympiad winner Levon Aronian (Armenia).
Two players have also shown excellent results this year: Alexander
Grischuk (Russia) – the winner of Linares and Elista super tournaments,
and Sergey Karjakin (Ukraine), who has won the Corus tournament in
January in Wijk-an-Zee.
World Cup 2007 winner Gata Kamsky (USA) this year has shown also a
good performance during the Challenge match against Veselin Topalov.
The FIDE Grand Prix is a series of six tournaments held over two
years (2008-2009) in leading world cities. It has given a number of
young players such as Wang Yue and Vugar Gashimov, the opportunity
to come to the forefront of the chess world. The winner of the Grand
Prix series will play in 2011 in the Candidate event of the World
Championship Cycle.