Levon Aronian advances to Magnus Carlsen Invitational knockout stageMarch 16, 2021 - 13:01 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Grandmaster Levon Aronian representing Armenia advanced to the knockout stage of the 2021 Magnus Carlsen Invitational on Monday, March 15, Chess.com reports. Aronian announced in late February that he was leaving Armenia to represent the United States, maintaining that the Armenian government had not been honoring its commitment to develop chess in the country. The tournament is headlined by early leaders GMs Magnus Carlsen and Anish Giri, with the former entering the quarterfinals as the top seed with 10.5 points. The rest of the knockout stage qualifiers are American GMs Wesley So and Hikaru Nakamura as well as GMs Alireza Firouzja, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. The Champions Chess Tour's Magnus Carlsen Invitational runs March 13-21 on chess24. The preliminary phase is a 16-player rapid (15|10) round-robin. The top eight players advance to a six-day knockout that consists of two days of four-game rapid matches, which advance to blitz (5|3) and armageddon (White has five minutes, Black four with no increment) tiebreaks only if a knockout match is tied after the second day. The prize fund is $220,000 with $60,000 for first place. Top stories Armenian gymnast, Olympic bronze medalist Artur Davtyan has reached the finals of the World Cup. Gor Manvelyan has denied reports alleging that he has expressed a desire to one day play for the French national team. Roma midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan is not considering FC Spartak Moscow as his next haven, according to fresh reports. 10 Armenian lifters will compete in the 2021 World Championships scheduled to be held from 7 to 17 December in Tashkent. Partner news | Russia clarifying reports on Baku’s alleged arms supply to Ukraine Russia says is carefully working to verify reports about alleged arms supplies from Azerbaijan to Ukraine Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. CSTO: Armenia has not participated in secretariat’s work recently Recently Armenia has not participated in the work of the secretariat of the CSTO, Imangali Tasmagambetov said. Meeting with U.S., EU not against third parties, says Armenia The meeting scheduled for April 5 is dedicated to strengthening of the Armenia-EU-US cooperation, Yerevan added. |