Seven Armenians are among 128 competitors in the World Chess Championship that begins today in Tripoli and continues through July 13.

Representing Armenia will be:

Vladimir Hakobyan (rating 2689), Levon Aronyan (rating 2645), Rafael Vahanyan (rating 2639), Smbat Lputyan (rating 2634), Gabriel Sargsyan (rating 2614), Karen Asryan (rating 2605), Ashot Anastasyan (rating 2587).

Players from 57 countries will compete in the seven round knock-out competition.

In the pairings tree Armenians are drawn for the first round in the following way:

Gabriel Sargsyan - Sergei Tiviakov ( Netherlands)

Smbat Lputyan - Merab Gagunashvili ( Georgia)

Ashot Anastasyan - Bu Xiangzhi ( China)

Rafael Vahanyan - Ghaem Maghami Ehsan ( Iran)

Levon Aronyan - Carlsen Magnus ( Norway)

Karen Asryan - Yevgeni Agrest ( Sweden)

Vladimir Hakobyan - Jose Gonzalez Garcia ( Mexico)

Chess (Tigran Petrosyan Tournament)

A tournament dedicated to Armenian world champion Tigran Petrosyan’s 75th Anniversary finished June 15 in Moscow, Russia with an 18.5 – 17.5 defeat of the Tigran Petrosyan team by the World team.

Competing in a six-player team tournament the Petrosyan team with the current best chess player of the world Garry Kasparov joining it couldn’t overcome strong World team led by the world number two Viswanathan Anand from India.

Tigran Pertorsyan team included chess players who are either Armenians or have Armenian connections. It consisted of three Armenian chess players Vladimir Akopyan, Smbat Lputyan and Rafael Vahanyan. The other three members of the team have Armenian connections: world number one chess player representing Russia Kasparov’s mother is Armenian, world number four Hungarian Peter Leko’s wife is Armenian and ranked 13 in FIDE rankings and Israeli Boris Gelfand was the most famous pupil (1980-83) of Tigran Petrosyan.