Arianne Bo Caoili ( ; 22 December 1986 – 30 March 2020) was a Filipino and Australian

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

player. She held the

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

title of

Woman International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

, won the Oceania women's chess championship in 2009 and competed in seven

Women's Chess Olympiad The Women's Chess Olympiad is an event held by FIDE (the International Chess Federation) since 1957 (every two years since 1972), where national women's teams compete at chess for gold, silver and bronze medals. Since 1976 the Women's Chess Olympia ...

s. Outside of chess, she was a financial consultant and singer, and served as an advisor to Armenian prime minister

Karen Karapetyan Karen Vilhelmi Karapetyan (; born 14 August 1963) is an Armenian politician who was Prime Minister of Armenia from September 2016 until April 2018. He was previously Mayor of Yerevan, the capital, from 2010 to 2011. He was appointed prime ministe ...

Chess

Born in

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, Caoili moved to Australia with her family in 1989. She began playing chess at six years old. On 22 December 2000, Caoili won the Asian girls under 16 championship in

Bagac Bagac, officially the Municipality of Bagac (), is a municipality in the province of Bataan, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 31,365 people, making it the least populated municipality in the province. Geography ...

, Philippines. The following year, she scored 5½ points out of 9 in the Conca Della Presolana tournament in Italy. Also in 2001, she was awarded the

Woman FIDE Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

and

titles by

. In the FIDE rating list of October 2002, Caoili achieved her peak

rating A rating is an evaluation or assessment of something, in terms of a metric (e.g. quality, quantity, a combination of both,...). Rating or rating system may also refer to: Business and economics * Credit rating, estimating the credit worthiness ...

of 2309. In 2002, Caoili finished 1st Equal at the Australian Masters International Tournament. In 2004 she transferred national federations to represent Australia. In 2009, she won the

London Chess Classic The London Chess Classic is a chess festival held at the Olympia Conference Centre, West Kensington, London. The flagship event is a strong invitational tournament between some of the world's top grandmasters. A number of subsidiary events cove ...

Women's Invitational tournament with a score of 8/9, two points ahead of the runner-up. In the same year, Caoili won the Oceania women's zonal tournament and as a result qualified to play in the Women's World Championship 2010. However, she did not appear in the first round in this competition. Caoili played for the Philippines in the

in 1998 and 2000. She represented Australia in the same competition in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012.

Television appearances

Caoili was one of the celebrity

dance Dance is an The arts, art form, consisting of sequences of body movements with aesthetic and often Symbol, symbolic value, either improvised or purposefully selected. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

rs in the fifth Australian season of ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Strictly Come Dancing (widely known as Dancing with the Stars)'' is an international television franchise based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing,'' itself a successor to the show ''Come Dancing'' (1950–1998) ...

''. Her professional dance partner was Carmelo Pizzino and she finished as the series' runner-up behind

Anthony Koutoufides Anthony Koutoufides (; born 18 January 1973), also known by his nickname of Kouta, is a retired Australian rules footballer who played for the Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). Considered by many as one of the most ...

. In an episode of the Australian TV show ''

Deal or No Deal ''Deal or No Deal'' is the name of several closely related television game shows, the first of which (launching the format) was the Dutch '' Miljoenenjacht'' (''Hunt/Chase for Millions''). The centerpiece of this format is the final round (a ...

'' she won a car for the home competition entrant.

Personal life

From 2008, Caoili was in a relationship with one of the world's top chess grandmasters,

Levon Aronian Levon Grigori Aronian (; born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess grandmaster who has represented the United States since 2021. A chess prodigy, he earned the title of grandmaster in 2000, at the age of 17. He is a former world rapid and blit ...

. They first met in 1996, at the

World Youth Chess Championship The World Youth Chess Championship is a FIDE-organized worldwide chess competition for boys and girls under the age of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. History Twelve world champions are crowned every year. Since 2015 (OR 2016), the event has been s ...

s in

Menorca Menorca or Minorca (from , later ''Minorica'') is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. Its name derives from its size, contrasting it with nearby Mallorca. Its capital is Maó, situated on the isl ...

, and became friends in 2006, being introduced by their mutual friend Alex Wohl. Aronian and Caoili became officially engaged in 2015 and were married on 30 September 2017 at the 13th-century

Saghmosavank Monastery The Saghmosavank (, Literal translation, lit. "monastery of the Psalms") is a 13th century, 13th-century Armenian architecture, Armenian monastic complex located in the village of Saghmosavan in the Aragatsotn Province of Armenia. Like the Hovhann ...

, with then Armenian President

Serzh Sargsyan Serzh Azati Sargsyan (, ; born 30 June 1954)Official biography of Serzh Sargsyan

and his wife

Rita Sargsyan Rita Aleksandri Sargsyan (, ''née'' Dadayan (), 6 March 1962 – 20 November 2020) was the wife of Serzh Sargsyan, the President of Armenia from 2008 to 2018. She was born to a military family and was a music teacher by profession. Biogra ...

in attendance. She spoke English and

Tagalog Tagalog may refer to: Language * Tagalog language, a language spoken in the Philippines ** Old Tagalog, an archaic form of the language ** Batangas Tagalog, a dialect of the language * Tagalog script, the writing system historically used for Tagal ...

fluently, and had studied for a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

at a German university on "Russian foreign policy, especially its economic and business relations with Armenia on a state and individual level". She worked as a consultant for a global consultancy firm. From 2013 until her death in 2020, Caoili lived and worked in Armenia. Arianne released an EP in 2018, "Hold On", consisting of five tracks, "To Find You" "Summer Days", "On a String", "Hold On" and "Every Little Day". While Arianne did the vocals, the songwriter was Matt Magee. Her debut EP tracks are available on YouTube and Spotify. Caoili died on 30 March 2020 of injuries from a

car crash A traffic collision, also known as a motor vehicle collision, or car crash, occurs when a vehicle collides with another vehicle, pedestrian, animal, road debris, or other moving or stationary obstruction, such as a tree, pole or building. T ...

into a bridge pillar that occurred on 15 March in

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , ; ; sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia, as well as one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerev ...

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

References

External links

* *
Arianne Caoili
chess games at 365Chess.com
A tweet from Caoili's husband about her death
{{DEFAULTSORT:Caoili, Arianne 1986 births 2020 deaths Australian expatriate sportspeople in Armenia Chess Woman International Masters Filipino chess players Filipino female chess players 21st-century Australian chess players Australian female chess players Chess Olympiad competitors Sportspeople from Manila Australian people of Filipino descent Sportspeople of Filipino descent Road incident deaths in Armenia