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Levon Aronian | Chess Career, US Olympic Team, Fatherhood | C-Squared #014

C-Squared

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We sat down with legendary Grandmaster Levon Aronian for an in depth conversation covering a variety of topics, including his early childhood, the most impactful coaches in his career, the Armenian and US Olympic teams, and more.

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00:00 - Levon’s chess beginnings
09:39 - Playing as a child in a collapsing government
12:46 - Coaches
18:05 - From toys to chess
24:59 - Becoming the breadwinner
26:34 - Levon’s parents
29:09 - Discipline and attention
33:05 - Speed Chess
35:23 - Nepotism and the Armenian Team
44:53 - Ashot Nadanian
46:53 - A New Generation of Players
49:20 - Blitz, Bullet and Rapid
53:09 - Levon vs Hikaru & Speed Chess Championship
54:56 - Becoming a father
57:10 - Playing for the US Olympic Team
1:03:40 - Discovering new ideas in chess
1:10:56 - Fabi tells us about a shocking move
1:13:21 - Sign-off

#chess #fabianocaruana #levonaronian

20 Comments

@merujS 3 years ago

My greatest pride is that I played Levon Aronyan in Armenia as a kid

@ragnorak56 3 years ago

The insane way that GMs can reference games against each other 8-9years ago and just talk about it as if they had the PGN opened in front of them.

@WhiteCavalier15 3 years ago

Me seeing this being over an hour:
"I'll watch first 10 minutes maybe..."
Me after the end:
"I want MOREEEE"

@patrickdaly1088 3 years ago

Lev the most wholesome top GM, truly a chess treasure

@landwolf00 3 years ago

Levon's story is amazing. He wins a chess tournament and his parents literally give away all of his toys. Play time was over!

@JStack 2 years ago

12:21 his mother sold her jewelry to pay for chess books and he returns that favor with his career and maintaining his elegance. Truly inspiring

@Nain1950 4 months ago

Levon is such a good Super-GM had a tragic and difficult life but is always positive.

@the_old_desperado 3 years ago

Levon is one of the most down to earth people you'll ever see in the game of chess.

@SantiagoMatíasLealChaves 5 months ago

My favorite chess player, that introduce me and make me love this game

@belld.s5276 3 years ago

For new chess fans, Aronian is one of the most creative players in the field today and world #2 for many years. He was ridiculously high rated for a long, long time. I mean, anyone over 2800 is ridiculously high rated lol.

@hugosykes 3 years ago (edited)

Brilliant podcast as always - my humble recommendation is when e.g. about 1:07:06 Fabi and Levon go down the rabbit hole of calculation, you put a board on screen so us mere mortals have a clue what's going on. Even just to be able to watch in slow-mo or pause and think about the position would be a lot easier with a visual guide. Thank you for the content! 🙏

@olyou835 6 months ago

Wow Levon life's journey was tough, he made it now successful man, he earned it well his parents are beautiful people in the world, loving parents helped love him so much, he loves his parents, nothing can replace that. What an interesting guy, what a character also, charismatic, intelligent, funny man, full of life. His parents has beautiful souls. Respect.

@Diceyedit 3 months ago

love how that guy knew all the armenian names

@Phumlani-Mathe 1 year ago

That was a sad start at chess Levon 💔. Big ups to your parents for seeing and investing in your talent ✨

@MiddleClassCitizen 3 years ago

What a supportive mother he has.

@kekzzzz 1 year ago

Came for chess and some laughs, stayed for a lesson in history and incredible insight into a different world

@AlexBanzea 3 years ago

Just imagining Wesley’s face when Fabi said it was prep not a mouseslip is hilarious

@randybailin4902 3 years ago

Cristian and Fabi have the best chess podcast there is. Intelligent conversation, rich with interesting stories and chess talk. Respect their guests in a very comfortable setting.

@sayanchatterjee355 3 years ago

Best. Chess. Podcast. On. The. Internet.
Keep going Cristian and Fabi. Also, let's take this in: these two bespectacled gentlemen here are considered by Magnus himself as two of his three greatest all-time opponents (the third being Anand) and probably the two best classical players in world chess in the last 10 years besides Magnus.