Elsewhere on the Web : 2005 FIDE World Cup - And the Winner Is...

Saturday December 24, 2005

Levon Aronian of Armenia, the no.3 seed with a pre-tournament rating of 2724, beat Ruslan Ponomariov of the Ukraine (no.9, 2704) to capture first place at the FIDE World Cup, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. After drawing the two regulation games, Aronian won both games in the first tiebreak series to win the prestigious event.

Etienne Bacrot of France (no.2, 2725) beat Alexander Grischuk of Russia (no.4, 2720), also in the first tiebreak, to settle third and fourth places. In the semifinal round, Aronian had defeated Bacrot, while Ponomariov downed Grischuk, to set the stage for the tense final round.

Winner Aronian and runnerup Ponomariov each gave a pair of interviews during the three week tournament. During the second interview, before the decisive tiebreak games, the players spoke about their opponent.

For their first interviews see

Congratulations to GM Aronian on the greatest result of his career. We hope to see many more successes from him, from the other World Cup semifinalists, and from the 124 players who competed in this exciting and well played event.

For more information on this event, see the World Chess Cup 2005 official site, and our ChessChrono : 2005 FIDE World Cup.

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