Death of Karen Asrian (June 9, 2008)

Chess has remained a beloved activity in Armenia since Soviet times, and especially after Tigran Petrosian became world champion from 1963-1969. Karen Asrian was among those chess players who followed that tradition to become one of the most promising and short-lived names in independent Armenia.

He was born in Yerevan on the day of the sixty-fifth anniversary of the Armenian Genocide: April 24, 1980. He started playing chess at the age of five and in 1990 he participated in the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) classification tournament for the Youth World Chess Championship, where he completed his norm to be awarded the title of International Master at the age of nine. Interestingly, then champion Garry Kasparov (1985-1993) had completed the same norm at the age of thirteen and his predecessor Anatoli Karpov (1975-1985) was eleven when he did it. Asrian’s ELO rating (the measure to rank chess players) was 2310 in September 1996 and became 2600 at the end of 1998, when he became International Grandmaster.
Between 1996 and 2008 he completed an impressive number of feats. In 1996 and 1997 he won the Tigran Petrosian Memorial international tournament (he would win it again in 2004) in Yerevan. Two years later, he won the Armenian Chess Championship and was champion of Europe with the Armenian team. Competing on the third board of the Armenian team, he won the bronze medal in the World Tournaments of 2001 and 2005, and the Chess Olympics of 2002 and 2004. He was also on the third board of the Armenian team that won the gold medal at the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin (Italy) in 2006. During the same year, he had reached his highest ELO rating (2646), with put him on the 62nd position among chess players in the world.
Meanwhile, Asrian had graduated from the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture in 2001, when he also won the Sheikh Cup in Dubai.
He won the Armenian Chess Championship again in 2007 and 2008, when he became the coach of the Iranian national chess team. His final rating, in April 2008, was 2630 (92nd in the world).
In the early morning of June 9, 2008, Asrian felt ill while driving and pulled his car into a courtyard of Yerevan before losing consciousness. An ambulance crew pronounced him dead at the scene, and the Armenian Chess Federation reported that the player had died of a heart attack while driving. The Chess Giants Yerevan tournament, which was going to start that same day, was interrupted for a few days and then renamed Karen Asrian Memorial. The unfortunate player had an open casket funeral at the Yerevan Chess House on June 11, with the participation of the President of Armenia (and President of the Armenian Chess Federation) Serzh Sargsyan and top government and legislative officials.
The Chess Giants Yerevan tournament was scheduled to start on June 9, with Asrian’s participation. It was postponed for a few days by decision of the Armenian Chess Federation and renamed the Karen Asrian Memorial. The tournament was held from June 12-15 and won by Levon Aronian, who had been on the first board of the gold medalist Armenian chess team in 2006.

Birth of Tigran Petrosian - June 17, 1929

Armenia was not an independent state in the 1960s, when Tigran the Great was the king of the world. Tigran Petrosian put Armenia and Armenians on the world map of chess. His almost impenetrable defensive playing style earned him the nickname “Iron Tigran” by Soviet grandmaster Lev Polugaievsky.

Petrosian was born in Tiflis on June 17, 1929. He learned to play chess at the age of 8, though his father, who was illiterate, encouraged him to continue studying. He was orphaned during World War II and was forced to sweep streets to earn a living.

He began training at the Tiflis Pioneers’ Palace in 1941, and became a candidate Master at the age of 17 (1946). He then moved to Yerevan and won the Armenian chess championship. He earned the title of Master during the USSR junior chess championship of 1947.

After moving to Moscow in 1949, Petrosian's career as a chess player advanced rapidly. In 1951 and 1952 he earned the titles of International Master and Grandmaster. In the tournament of candidates for world championship of 1953, he arrived in fifth position. After the 1956 candidates’ tournament, he made a turnaround in his production. He went on to win the 1959 and 1961 USSR championships, and after winning the candidates’ tournament of 1962 in Curacao, he earned the right to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik, another Soviet player, for the title of world chess champion. Petrosian won the match in 1963 with a final score of 12.5 to 9.5.

Upon becoming world champion, Petrosian became editor-in-chief of the chess monthly Shakhmatnaya Moskva (1963-1966) and campaigned for the publication of a chess newspaper for the entire Soviet Union. This newspaper became known as 64. He would become its founding editor from 1968-1977. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophical Science at Yerevan State University in 1968, with his dissertation entitled “Chess Logics: Some Problems of Logic of Chess Thought.”

After successfully defending his crown in 1966 against Boris Spassky, Petrosian, who had won the Soviet championship in 1969, was challenged again by the same player in the same year. This time, Spassky won the match by 12.5-10.5.

The Armenian player continued his career and participated four more times in the candidates’ tournament (1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980). He won again the Soviet championship in 1975. He participated as a representative of the USSR in ten Chess Olympiads from 1958-1978, where he obtained the third all-best performance of all times (79.5 per cent, with only one defeat on 129 games) and won six individual gold medals.

Petrosian photographed during a match with rival Bobby Fischer in Belgrad, Yugoslavia, 1970.

In his 1973 book on grandmasters of chess, New York Times journalist Harold C. Schonberg said that “playing him was like trying to put handcuffs on an eel. There was nothing to grip.” Boris Spassky, Petrosian’s successor, described his style of play: “Petrosian reminds me of a hedgehog. Just when you think you have caught him, he puts out his quills."

Petrosian passed away of stomach cancer in Moscow on August 13, 1984. He was buried in the cemetery of Vagankovo, where world chess champion Garry Kasparov unveiled a memorial on his grave in 1987, depicting the laurel wreath of a world champion and an image contained within a crown of the sun shining above the twin peaks of Mount Ararat.  In the district of Davtashen, in Yerevan, a monument honoring the world-famous player was opened in 2006 on the street that carries his name.

Tigran Petrosian contributed enormously to popularize chess in Armenia. The country became a great power in the chess world after independence. Grandmaster Tigran L. Petrosian, born a month after his death, was named after him.