Levon Aronian, born 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, is an Armenian chess Grandmaster. He is Armenia's #1 player.
Aronian won the Chess World Cup 2005. He led the Armenian national team to the gold medals in the 37th Chess Olympiad, Turin 2006, the 38th Olympiad, Dresden 2008, and the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo, 2011. In the Chess Olympiad 2010 at Khanty-Mansiysk he won the silver medal for his individual performance on board one.
He won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012, where he was knocked out in the first round.
Aronian has had a string of outstanding tournament results since reaching the top with a joint win at Wijk aan Zee 2008. His latest, and perhaps greatest victory was in January 2012, at the same Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. The field included world #1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Hikaru Nakamura, and former world champion Veselin Topalov, among others. The average rating of the field was 2755, making this thirteen-round event a category 21 tournament. After twelve rounds, Aronian was in clear first place with 8.5 points going into the final round, one point ahead of Carlsen and Teimour Radjabov. In the final round, Aronian drew against Radjabov with the white pieces in the King's Indian Defence. With the draw, Aronian finished with 9/13 (+5), a tournament performance rating of 2891. He took clear first place a point ahead of Carlsen, Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana.
Aronian was declared the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005, and was awarded the title of "Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia" in 2009.
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Alexander Grischuk
Alexander Grischuk (born Moscow, 31 October 1983) is a chess grandmaster, one of the top Russian players.
In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000 he made it to the semi finals.
In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 he made it to the quarter finals, where he lost 3–1 to Rustam Kasimdzhanov.
Grischuk is also one of the best blitz chess players in the world, having once held the record for highest rating achieved on the Internet Chess Club. In 2006 he won the World Blitz Championship in Israel.
Grischuk is married to the Ukrainian WGM Natalia Zhukova.
Peter Svidler
Peter Svidler, born 17 June 1976 in Leningrad, is a Russian chess Grandmaster, and six times Russian chess champion.
Peter Svidler learned to play chess when he was six years old. In 1992, he tied for 1st with Ragim Gasimov in the USSR Junior Open Chess Championship. He became a grandmaster in 1994.
He has been Russian champion six times (1994, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2008, 2011). This is a record for this high-class event, which has a long history. In 2001, he reached the semi-finals of the FIDE World Championship.
He came second (with Viswanathan Anand) in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis with 8.5 points out of 14 games, lagging 1.5 points behind the winner, Veselin Topalov. In an interview given for World Chess Network he said: "I only prepared seriously for San Luis, and I think it has paid off. But in general I spend most of my spare time with my wife and kids, so my relative success in 2005 was a pleasant surprise". His San Luis result earned him direct entry to the World Chess Championship series of 2007. In that tournament he scored 6.5 out of 14, placing 5th out of eight players.
In 2006 he came second behind Alexander Grischuk at the World Blitz Championship in Rishon Lezion, Israel, with 10.5 points out of 15 games. He also finished tied for first with Vladimir Kramnik at Dortmund 2006.
Svidler has won the FIDE 2011 World Cup in Khanty-Mansisyk Siberia. The final was in September.
Svidler took the $120,000 first prize after beating his fellow countryman, Alexander Grischuk 2.5-1.5, in the best-of-four game final. It was a crushing psychological win for Svidler, who took adantage of his opponent's bad time-management. Svidler steered the games into lines that had Grischuk thinking from the very early stages.
Svidler has now become the first Russian to win the World Cup title. His back-to-back major title wins of the Russian Championship followed by the World Cup has Svidler once again into the world’s top ten.
Both Svidler and Grischuk also earned qualification for the 2012 World Championship Candidates tournament. And in the all-Ukrainian battle for the third Candidates spot, Vassily Ivanchuk won 2.5-1.5 against Ruslan Ponomariov.
Renaissance man
The term Renaissance man or polymath is used for a very clever man who is good at many different things. It is named after the Renaissance period of history (from the 14th century to the 16th or 17th century in Europe). Two of the best-known people from this time were Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Leonardo was a famous painter but he was also a scientist, philosopher, engineer, and mathematician. Michelangelo was an extraordinary sculptor, painter, architect and poet. They are known as two of the highest examples of what a Renaissance man is.
But the term "Renaissance man" is also often used for extraordinary people not from the Renaissance period. It can be used for anyone who is very clever at many different things, no matter when that person lived. Albert Schweitzer was a 20th century "Renaissance man" who was a theologian, musician, philosopher and doctor. Benjamin Franklin was a "Renaissance man" who lived in the 18th century and was an author and printer, politician, scientist, inventor and soldier.
() was the original concept of the Renaissance man. It was an ideal of the Italian Renaissance. One example is the saying by Leone Battista Alberti that "a man can do all things if he will". Many Renaissance men from this time are still famous today:
Hurricane Vince
Hurricane Vince was an unusual hurricane that began in the northeast Atlantic Ocean. It was part of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The waters where it formed were thought to be too cold for tropical cyclones to exist. Vince was the 20th named storm and 12th hurricane of the season.
The storm that became Vince started out as an extratropical cyclone. It became a subtropical storm on October 8 to the southeast of the Azores. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) did not officially give the storm a name until the next day. Vince grew into a hurricane before beginning to weaken at sea. On October 11, it made landfall on the Iberian Peninsula in Spain. At that time, it was a tropical depression. It may have been the first storm to hit the area since a hurricane in 1842. Vince died out over Spain. However, it did drop rain on the country. What was left of the storm passed into the Mediterranean Sea.
On October 5, a storm now known as the 2005 Azores subtropical storm was absorbed by another low pressure area. It then began to develop and become more organized. It became a subtropical cyclone early on October 8. The storm was 580 miles (930 km) southeast of Lajes in the Azores. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) did not name the system Vince at the time, because the waters here were thought to be too cold for tropical or subtropical cyclones to exist. The storm slowly became more tropical, with a warm center. It became a tropical storm the next day in water cooler than 24 °C (75 °F), colder than the 26.5 °C (80 °F) usually needed for tropical storms.