There's so much more on offer for Armenian chess Grandmaster Hrant Melkumyan than just the $5000 first prize at this year's Doeberl Cup in Canberra.
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For the world number 77, this weekend's tournament provides a chance to honour his late friend and former Canberran Arianne Caoili, the woman who introduced him to a bright-eyed Emma Guo almost a decade ago in Istanbul.
The couple was rocked by the news 12 months ago that 33-year-old Caoili had been killed in a car accident in Yerevan, where she'd been living with husband and former world number two chess player, Levon Aronian.
"We were told there were no life-threatening wounds - we were talking to Levon, he was very positive about it," Melkumyan recalls.
"We didn't speak for two days, and then he messaged me saying the doctors told him something went wrong, and unfortunately she's going to pass tomorrow, I'm going to say bye to her now."
Guo, a chess prodigy when growing up in Canberra, was a teammate of Caoili's at the 2012 Olympiad in Istanbul. Melkumyan was already good mates with Aronian, who had been with Caoili since 2006 - and she thought Guo and Melkumyan would get along.
It was typical of the bright and bubbly ex-Canberra student, a Women's International Master herself at the chessboard whose other achievements included finishing runner-up on Dancing With the Stars, starting a newspaper in Yerevan, and riding a bicycle 2000km through Turkey and Iran to Armenia to raise money for children of her husband's home country.
"It was really sad because you reflect on all the memories you have of her," Guo says.
"As a young female chess player, she was someone I looked up to. She's this brilliant person who you kind of put on a pedestal, who had achieved so many things and was able to pick up something, and be brilliant at it straight away. . .dancing, languages, economics."
She also had an eye for bringing people together, which Guo and Melkumyan's lengthy and long-distance relationship has proven. In an unlikely twist of fate, the COVID-19 pandemic has completely erased the near 14,000km that separates them for long stretches of the year.
Melkumyan typically visits Canberra at the start of every year and stays for about three months playing in a number of large tournaments in the region including the Doeberl Cup, which he won in 2019.
In a normal year he'd then head back to Europe and play chess professionally, and while Guo was studying, she would travel abroad and visit during university breaks.
When COVID-19 broke out, Melkumyan was in Australia and unable to travel home. He still hasn't left, which has meant living in Canberra and watching on from afar as a brutal and bloody war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
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"In general I feel happy here, there's no virus and life is more or less normal," Melkumyan says.
"On the other hand my thoughts are with my family and friends back home. It was tough, even for me here, because I knew some people who died at the war, and lots of people who just escaped.
"Because of the war Armenia lost 20 per cent of its territories.
"The way it ended was heartbreaking for us. With the agreement, there'll be no proper road to it, Russian peacekeepers will be there.
"It's just not a stable situation, the war could happen again. Hopefully Armenia won't become a Syrian battlefield for superpowers."
DOEBERL CUP: April 1-5, Woden Southern Cross Club
James Buckley
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
James is a Queanbeyan boy enjoying his second stint at the Canberra Times, more than eight years on from his first. In between he's traveled the world, and spent time covering sport in Sydney.
