Armenia's Levon Aronian draws round 6, still leads FIDE Grand Prix

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia's Levon Aronian made a draw with Peter Svidler and remains the sole leader of the FIDE Grand Prix after six rounds.

Aronian was happy about his position after the opening but was disappointed with his decision of 20.Ng5: “While I was playing fast I was doing the right moves, than I thought for 25 minutes, got carried away and blundered 21...Rae8.”

The Armenian grandmaster will face Rapport Richard of Hungary in round 7.

Aronian is currently the only player to have collected 4.0 points and is closely followed by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Hikaru Nakamura (U.S.), Ding Liren (China), Peter Svidler (Russia), Pentala Harikrishna (India), Evgeny Tomashevsky (Russia) and Dmitry Jakovenko (Russia) with 3.5 points each.

The FIDE Grand Prix 2017 is a series of four chess tournaments that form part of the qualification cycle for the World Chess Championship 2018. The top two finishers will qualify for the 2018 Candidates Tournament.

Aronian who won the World Chess Cup in September, as well as Liren, who reached the finals, have already qualified for the Candidates Tournament.