Aronian wins Oberursel Christmas blitz

Many chess clubs have informal Christmas blitz events, some of these may have a rating difference of roughly 1000 points between the strongest and weakest player in a single group, but generally none are mentioned at ChessVibes. We make an exception for a German event in Oberursel near Frankfurt because the winner was Levon Aronian, among a few other achievements also current world blitz champion. For the third time in a row he participated at no costs for the organizers, club president Thomas Falk explains why:

His girl-friend Arianne Caoili plays since almost 15 years [back then she was 10 years old] for SV Oberursel and also gets a bit of support from the club.

This time Aronian didn't score 100% but drew two games and lost against FM Schlamp from the organizing club – the report on the club homepage has a photo of the final phase of that game. The other participant best known to an international audience may not be multiple German blitz champion GM Bischoff who finished just half a point behind Aronian but – despite his modest rating (comparable to mine) – Hans-Walter Schmitt, formerly organizer of the Mainz rapid events and member of Anand's team during World Championship matches.

The report on the German federation page mentions a forthcoming Aronian interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and reveals that Aronian had another reason to travel from his current residence Berlin to Frankfurt: the next day he left from Frankfurt airport for holidays in Malaysia, where Caoili will join him coming from Australia. This also means that they will celebrate her birthday together (22nd December as mentioned on the Oberursel club homepage).