On June 26, the AGBU Armenian Virtual College (AVC) together with Chess Academy of Armenia held the Online Closing Ceremony of the first Pan-Armenian Chess Tournament (PACT).Held on June 8-26, 2020 through the AVC interactive online learning platform the virtual tournament attracted over 520 participants from 36 counties all over the World.
The online ceremony was opened with welcomingmessagesfromthe AGBU AVC Founding President, Dr. YervantZorian, describing the goals and objective of this tournament,and the President of the Chess Academy of Armenia, GrandmasterSmbatLputian, referring to the impact of chess on strategic thinking.
After the introductory part, the three Champions of the Pan-Armenian Chess Tournament2020 were announced:
The 1st prize went to 16 years old Sargis Sargsyan from Vanadzor, Lori region of Armenia, The 2nd prize went to 14 years old Kirk Ghazarian from the California, USA. The 3rd prize went to 16 years old Tigran Arzumanyan from Goris, Syunik region of Armenia.All the winners were awarded with dedicated certificates and special gift cards from AGBU AVC.
“The idea of creating this innovative tournament was not only to attain the winners. But rather, it was most importantly to create a dynamiconline community of chess loving students with world-wide participation”, emphasized Dr. YervantZorian congratulating the winners.
Representing the tournament sponsorAGBU, Vasken Yacoubian, the President of AGBU Armenia delivered a heartfelt encouraging message.
Partitioned to five geographic regions - Armenia and Artsakh, Asia and Oceania, Europe, Americas, Middle East and Africa - the tournament was structured in two stages, five regional semi-finals and three rounds of the final games. The first stage was played by the participants from each region united to come up with three finalists. At the second stage, three challenging rounds of the final tournament brought together the finalists to contest the PACT Winner title. Between the tournaments, the participants were able to visit the AVC page dedicated to PACT to take part in online chess activities with renown Armenian champions and learn new chess skills from multimedia interactive AVC Chess courses.
The Pan-Armenian Chess Tournament’s regional semi-finals’ winners are:
The finalists from Armenia& Artsakh:
1st place - Sargis Sargsyan, Vanadzor, Lori, age 16
2nd place - Tigran Arzumanyan, Goris, Syunik, age 16
3rd place - Menua Hakobyan, Yerevan, age 12
The finalists from Middle East & Africa:
1st place - Kevork Yeghian, Aleppo, Syria, age 16
2nd place - Edward Iskandarian, Beirut, Lebanon, age 14
3rd place - ArsenKenian , Aleppo, Syria, age 9
The finalists from Europe...
