Three of seven Armenians participating at the World Chess Championships in Tripoli, Libya managed to enter the third round of the seven-round tournament where 128 chess players are competing.

Levon Aronyan (rating 2645), number one Armenian chess player Vladimir Hakobyan (rating 2689) and Ashot Anastasyan (rating 2587) are among 32 players, who were successful in first two rounds and no are competing for entering fourth round where only 16 players will be left.

Hakobyan, Aronyan, Anastasyan

In the first round Vladimir Hakobyan beat 1.5 – 0.5 Mexican player Jose Gonzalez Garcia. In the second round he defeated Utut Adianto from Indonesia with the same score. Now Hakobyan is playing against Ukrainian Alexander Moiseenko and for the present moment Hakobyan is leading 1–0.

Levon Aronyan secured his first round victory over Carlsen Magnus from Norway with the score 2.5 – 1.5 (three draws and one victory). In the second round Aronyan easily beat Azeri chess player Gadir Guseinov winning in two matches (2 - 0). Third round matches between Aronyan and Russian Pavel Smirnov are still in progress. They have played one match where both players have half points as a result of draw (0.5 – 0.5)

Ashot Anastasyan’s way to the third round was also not too hard. In the first round Anastasyan won 1.5 – 0.5 victory over Bu Xiangzhi from China. In the second round he beat Indian chess player Das Neelotpal 2.5 – 1.5 (three draws and one victory). Currently he is tied 0.5-0.5 with Alexander Beliavski of Slovenia.