O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
Dear friends, today I would like to remember my friend Karen Asrian (1980-2008). I cannot say better than I did in the "64 Chess Review" magazine (8/2008). Here we have the translation of that article from Russian into English with insignificant changes.
A FAREWELL TO FRIEND
I met Karen Asrian during Armenian Championship in 1995. Back then Karen was 15, but his advanced endgame skills and understanding of the position were already deeply impressive. Evidently, a new talented player was coming up. Indeed, right next year Karen shows a phenomenal result – 9 out of 11 and gets a gold medal for the best performance on his board at the Yerevan Olympiad (1996). Later, he shows great performance in the world junior championships. In 1998, Karen becomes a grandmaster and defends the honor of the Armenian team at the Elista Olympiad (1998).
While getting stronger over the years, Karen becomes the winner of several international tournaments as well as a multiple champion of Armenia. The historic victory of the Armenian team at the Turin Olympiad (2006) turned out to be the crown of his achievements.
Karen was certainly a versatile chess player. His deep opening knowledge, instant calculation, and advanced endgame technique made him a dangerous rival for any grandmaster. However, his lack of aggressive attitude and peacefulness kept him from getting more out of his potential. I suppose that being a gentle person prevented Karen from going for a tough fight in the actual game. If Karen, for example, had a choice between two options: going to the nearest bar with his opponent or playing a game against him, he would definitely go for the first one. However, when he was at his best, he could create quite a crushing attack.
Besides practical performances, Karen deeply engaged in coaching activity. Particularly, he worked with Iranian, Qatari, and Chinese leading chess players. Obviously, he assisted Armenian grandmasters and young talented players as well. On top of that, he was an excellent analyst. Quite often we found ourselves lingering till the late night over some interesting endgame.
At the end of May, Karen played in the French Team Championship and returned to Yerevan and then...
On June 9, parking his car in front of the Chess House, Karen suddenly felt bad. The doctors arrived pretty soon just to record death from a brain hemorrhage. That happened just a couple of hours before the opening of the “Chess Giants” tournament.
Although more than a month passed from that day, a lot of people still experience shock from the tragedy. How could it happen that a young, handsome, cheerful guy with so many friends all over the world would just pass away in the prime of his life? Karen was an extraordinarily bright man. He filled people with joy and happiness merely with his presence. When he was around, there were always jokes, laughter, and fun. He was always in a hurry as if he felt he had it coming. On top of that, he was a very kind person. He adored children and intended to get married eventually. Every year he set a wedding day on 30th December, but couldn’t find the right match.
Right after Armenians’ victory at the Turin Olympiad, Karen said a phrase that was meant to be ill-fated:
“So, I did not live in vain.”
He had a lot of things done in his short life, but there were so many more to accomplish…
Karen will be missed by everyone who got the chance to know him close enough. It’s hard to believe, that we will never see his broad and charming smile, as well as, no one is going to answer the cell phone again with his usual “Hi, bro!”...
Karen passed away at 28, as a reigning Olympic and Armenian champion. There were a lot of big plans coming up, such as defending the champion title at the Dresden Olympiad (2008). Still, everything Karen managed to do was more than enough to inscribe his name in gold letters in the rich history of Armenian chess.
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Karen like me enjoyed solving challenging problems and studies. The next beautiful monster he cracked faster than me.
