YEREVAN, MAY 24, NOYAN TAPAN. Grand master Levon Aronian and his second Gabriel Sargsian left for the capital of Kalmykia, Elista, on May 24. The solemn ceremony of opening of the competitions of 8 pairs pretending for the world chess championship will take place in Elista on May 26. Magnus Carlsen (Norway) will be Levon Aronian's rival. The other 7 pairs are: Aleksey Shirov (Spain) - Michael Adams (England), Peter Leko (Hungary) - Mikhayil Gurevich (Turkey), Judit Polgar (Hungary) - Evgeni Bareev (Russia), Ruslan Ponomaryov (Ukraine) - Sergey Rublevski (Russia), Alexander Grishchuk (Russia) -Vladimir Malakhov (Russia), Boris Gelfand (Israel) - Rustam Kasimjanov (Uzbekistan), Etienne Bacrot (France) - Gata Kamsky (U.S.). 6 matches will be played during each of the competitions (May 27, 28, 29, 31 and June 1,2). Additional meetings of speed chess will be appointed in the case of an equal, 3:3 score, and in the case of necessity, swift chess meeting will also be appointed. In the case of reaching success, L. Aronian will compete with the winner of the Shirov-Adams pair. 4 competitions of 2nd stage of the tournament are scheduled for June 6-13. The main trainer of the tournament is trainer of the international category A. Philipovich (Poland). The prize fund fixed for each of the competitions is 40 thousand U.S. dollars.

---