Varuzhan Akobian ( hy, Վարուժան Հակոբյան, born 19 November 1983 in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

) is an Armenian-born American

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

Grandmaster. Originally from

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ...

, he now resides in St. Louis. He played on the bronze-medal-winning U.S. team in the 2006 and

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing ...

Chess Olympiads.

Chess career

Akobian, an Armenian American, became an

International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combinatio ...

at age 16. In 2001, he moved to the United States and one week after his 20th birthday in November 2003, earned the title of Grandmaster. He won the World Open tournament in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

on three separate occasions; he shared first place in 2002 and won it outright in 2004 and 2007. In 2006 he tied for first in the San Marino tournament with a

performance rating The PR (Performance Rating, P-rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s (Cyrix announced it in February 1996) as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those ...

of 2796. In 2007 he tied for 1st–8th with Hikaru Nakamura, Alexander Shabalov,

Darmen Sadvakasov Darmen Sadvakasov (born 28 April 1979) is a Kazakhstani chess player. He is a five-time national champion (2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007) and a former world junior champion. Sadvakasov was awarded the title of International Master (IM) by FIDE in ...

, Zviad Izoria,

Victor Mikhalevski Victor (Viktor) Mikhalevski ( he, ויקטור מיכלבסקי; born 8 July 1972) is an Israeli chess grandmaster who lives in Beersheba. his Elo rating was 2611, making him the #7 player in Israel and the 171st-highest rated player in the ...

Magesh Chandran Panchanathan Magesh Chandran Panchanathan (born 10 August 1983) is an Indian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2006. Magesh Chandran was born in Madurai. In 2003 he won the Asian Junior Chess Championship in Sri Lanka. In 20 ...

and Justin Sarkar in the Miami Open and came equal first in the American Continental Championship in Cali, Colombia. This qualified him for the Chess World Cup 2007, where he was eliminated in the first round. He also took part in the Chess World Cup 2009 and was knocked out by Ruslan Ponomariov in the second round. In 2007, Akobian was featured on MTV's '' True Life'' documentary series, in an episode titled "I'm a Genius". As of May 2014, he was the fifth highest rated player in the US, with a FIDE rating of 2643. In May, 2014, while playing the U.S. Chess Championship at Saint Louis he tied for first with Gata Kamsky and

Aleksandr Lenderman Aleksandr "Alex" Lenderman (born September 23, 1989) is an American chess grandmaster. He won the 2005 World Under-16 Championship in Belfort with a score of 9/10 (+8 −0 =2), becoming the first American to win a gold medal at the World You ...

, going to a three players playoff to decide who would become champion. In an Armageddon Game he defeated Lenderman and went on to a Rapid Match against Kamsky, that resulted 1,5 for Kamsky to 0,5 to Akobian, granting Kamsky the title, and making Akobian the runner up in the 2014 U.S. Chess Championship. Akobian currently serves as assistant coach for the Saint Louis University chess team.

References

External links

* * * *
Grandmaster Games Database - Varuzhan Akobian
at redhotpawn.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Akobian, Varuzhan 1983 births Living people Armenian chess players American chess players Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Armenian emigrants to the United States Sportspeople from Yerevan