Melikset Khachiyan among FIDE Trainer Awards winners

Melikset Khachiyan among FIDE Trainer Awards winners

PanARMENIAN.Net - The FIDE Trainers Commission on Monday, May 10 announced the winners of the 14th FIDE Trainer Awards for 2020-21, with Armenian-American Grandmaster Melikset Khachiyan (U.S.) winning the Liu Wenzhe Award.

The award is a recognition to the figure of the "first coach", as endorsed by one or more leading chess players. Khachiyan got his endorsement from none other than the fourth-highest rated player in history, Levon Aronian.

Khachiyan first met Aronian in 1991, when he was 9 years old and had just started to play chess. Barely three years later, Levon would win the 1994 World Youth Chess Championship (under-12) in Szeged, Hungary, ahead of some other future stars like Grischuk, Bacrot, and Vallejo.

"I am very grateful to destiny that I had a great first coach. Many of the things he taught me I still use today. He is a dedicated professional that also changed and reinvented other talented players like Tigran L. Petrosian, Arman Pashikian, and Varuzhan Hakobian, all of whom became grandmasters", FIDE cited Aronian as saying.

Nowadays, Khachiyan works mainly with the IM Annie Wang, and with the American Women's team.

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