Aronian’s Big Comeback

Aronian’s Chess Comeback
Lubomir Kavalek
International Chess Grandmaster
Posted: 09/03/2015 2:36 pm EDT

Levon Aronian won the third Sinquefield Cup, the second leg of the recently established Grand Chess Tour. The top Armenian grandmaster finished a full point ahead of a group led by the world champion Magnus Carlsen and the U.S. champion Hikaru Nakamura.

Last October, Aronian began sliding from the number two spot behind Carlsen on the FIDE rating list, where he resided for almost three years. He even slipped past 10th place and was told by his girlfriend that it had to stop. “I listened,” he said with a smile.

On Tuesday, after all results of the Sinquefield Cup were tallied at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, Aronian reentered the elite 10 group. He defeated three U.S. representatives – Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So – and drew the rest of the games. Carlsen and Nakamura also won three games each, but two losses set them back.

“The chess world is a better place when Aronian is playing well,” tweeted the former world champion Garry Kasparov. When he is on, Aronian can create beautiful masterpieces. He loves the little combinations, the almost undetectable gems, ambushing his opponents. “I was trying to play for traps, which is useful,” he put it succinctly after winning against Caruana.

Full article here.