The Stepan Avagyan Memorial has reached the two-thirds mark in Jermuk, with Nihal Sarin, Ray Robson and Vladislav Artemiev sharing first place on 3½/6. Four players stand half a point behind, leaving the final three rounds open in a tightly contested 10-player round-robin.
The tournament is taking place from 28 May to 6 June 2026, organised by the Chess Academy of Armenia in collaboration with the Jermuk Ashkhar Health Centre. The event is a 10-player all-play-all, with one round played each day and no rest days.
The time control is 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with a 30-second increment from move one. The prize fund amounts to 10,050,000 AMD, equivalent to approximately 26,000 US dollars.
The ten participants during the opening ceremony | Photo: Official website
Nihal, the top seed and the only player in the field rated above 2700, remains unbeaten after six rounds. His score has come from one win and five draws, a pattern matched by Artemiev, who is also undefeated on 3½ points. Robson has taken a different route to the same score, with two wins, three draws and one loss.
The chasing group on 3/6 consists of Sam Sevian, Robert Hovhannisyan, Aram Hakobyan and defending champion Aravindh Chithambaram. Sevian, the 2023 winner, and Hovhannisyan have both drawn all six of their games so far, while Hakobyan has recorded one win, one loss and four draws.
Aravindh has produced the highest number of decisive games in the event to this point. The third seed, who won the 2025 edition on tiebreaks after finishing level with Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, has scored two wins, two draws and two losses in Jermuk this year.
The first round, with Alexander Donchenko v. Szymon Gumularz (draw) in the foreground | Photo: Official website
The playing hall during round two | Photo: Official website
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