Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian will participate in the annual Tradewise Chess Festival set to be held from January 23 to February 1 in Gibraltar.

Aronian is the highest ranked player this year and will face Hungary’s Anita Gara in the first round.

Also participating in the Swiss-system tournament are Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France), Hikaru Nakamura (U.S.), David Navara (the Czech Republic), Pentala Harikrishna (India), Nikita Vitiugov (Russia), Vassily Ivanchuk (Ukraine) and some 260 others.

Aronian shared the first spot in the 2005 edition of the Festival, while Vladimir Akopian, another of Armenia’s grandmasters, singlehandedly won the tournament in 2007.