During today's government sitting it was decided to allot 5 million AMD as an award to the World Chess Cup winner Levon Aronian. Former World junior champion Levon Aronian comprehensively defeated former World champion Ruslan Ponomaryov of Ukraine 2-0 in the tie-break games of the final to annex the World Chess Cup that concluded in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia, on Saturday. Winning both the games under rapid time control, Aronian stamped his authority on the event and remained the only contestant in this long seven-round grind undefeated. The superiority of the Armenian can be gauged by the simple fact that he was stretched to the tie-breaker only twice -- once in round four against Spanish hope Francisco Vallejo Pons and next in the finals against Ponomaryov. Besides, Aronian won all the two mini-matches under normal time control games. The success rate of the Armenian was phenomenal as he won as many as seven out of 14 games under normal time control and drew the remaining. In the rapid tie-break games, Aronian scored 3.5/4 overall.

As reported by IA Regnum, according to the survey conducted among 27 sports journalists Levon Aronian was recognized the best chess player of 2005.