He is a 23-year-old Armenian Grandmaster named Levon Aronian. In April, he became the world number three chess player after winning the Linares tournament in March.
Linares is not his sole achievement but it is certainly his greatest so far. Linares is to chess what Wimbledon is to tennis: a fabled tournament played by the world’s best, and Aronian outranked them all. Even current world champion Veselin Topalov!
Winning Linares is no flash in the pan, mind you. Aronian’s resume is packed with achievements: under-12 World Champion, FIDE junior rapid champion at age 14, and member of Armenia’s Olympic team by age 16. Aronian caught the world’s attention by winning the FIDE World Cup in 2005, and now Linares.
Aronian is said to be an ace at blitz play (chess games with very small time limits) and the insane one-minute chess. He is also among the best at Fischerandom Chess, a variant of chess which emphasises creativity and calculation over memorisation of chess theory. Invented by the great Bobby Fischer, Fischerandom is considered by many to be the future of chess play and Aronian will certainly be one of its first heroes.
![Order Your Copy of Andrew Goldberg's Documentary [The Armenian Genocide]](http://www.twocatstv.com/images/feature_box_armgeno180.jpg)
