Levon Aronian Wins St. Louis Super Tournament with Prize of $37,500

Levon Aronian became the winner of the latest Grand Chess Tour event held in St. Louis, USA. Here, chess players competed under rapid and blitz chess rules. Yesterday marked the conclusion of the blitz tournament with the final 9 rounds.

In the first round, Aronian playing with black pieces lost to Sergey Karjakin (Russia), but then he defeated Azerbaijani Shahriyar Mamedyarov with white pieces and subsequently submitted Chinese Ding Liren with the black pieces.

In the next three rounds, Aronian drew with Fabiano Caruana, Yu Yangi, and Lenier Dominguez, but then lost to Hungarian Richard Rapport with black pieces and drew with Magnus Carlsen. Before the last round, Aronian had accumulated 22 points, while Yu Yangi had 21, and both Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Ding Liren had 20.5 points.

In the final game, Levon lost to Vachier-Lagrave with white pieces, and Yu Yangi drew with Mamedyarov. Aronian earned 9 points in the blitz tournament, sharing 4th-5th place with Carlsen, and with a total of 22 points across both tournaments, he was crowned the champion of the St. Louis tournament.

With this victory, Aronian secured a prize of $37,500.