Vladimir Akopian

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Vladimir Akopian (Russian: Владимир Акопян); born December 7, 1971 in Baku) is a leading Armenian chess Grandmaster. In Armenia his surname is more commonly written Hakobyan (Armenian: Վլադիմիր Հակոբյան; however, most english texts and the Fédération Internationale des Échecs use the Russian version.

Akopian won the World Under-16 Championship in 1986 at the age of 14 and the World Under-18 Championship at 16.

In 1991 he won the World Junior Chess Championship and in 1999 he made his way through to the final of the FIDE Knock-Out World Chess Championship, but lost to Alexander Khalifman, 3.5-2.5. In the 2004 event, he was knocked out in the quarter-finals by the player he had defeated in the 1999 semi-finals, Michael Adams.

It was reported that Akopian had to withdraw from the 2005 Dubai Open when he was arrested at Dubai airport having been mistaken for an individual of the same name wanted by Interpol for murder [1].

On the October 2006 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2713, making him number fifteen in the world and Armenia's number two player, behind Levon Aronian.

Akopian was one of the contributing players of the Armenian chess team which won gold at the 2006 Chess Olympiad ahead of second placed China and third placed USA.