On the evening of July 24 (local time), grandmaster Le Quang Liem (ranked 17th in the world ) excellently defeated the number 1 seed Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (India, ranked 8th in the world ) after 65 moves in the penultimate round of the Grandmaster Triathlon finals at the Biel Chess Festival.
This victory brought Le Quang Liem 4 more points, winning the championship 1 round early because the gap he created compared to the second-ranked player Haik Martirosyan (Armenia) was 5.5 points.
The match that decided Le Quang Liem's championship
Le Quang Liem has not participated in major international tournaments for a long time to focus on coaching at Webster University (USA) and running the SPICE Chess Academy at this school.
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa lost after 65 moves
Biel Chess Festival is a tournament that has brought Liem many successes in the past with two championships in 2022 and 2023, so he decided to participate in this tournament with the determination to surpass himself and set new records for this prestigious chess festival.
Six players to compete in Biel Grandmaster 2024
Biel Grandmaster is a tournament for six grandmaster level players, who are currently ranked as super grandmasters (Elo from 2,700), within the framework of the Biel International Chess Festival, which has been held annually since 1968 in Switzerland.
Players must compete in three events including 5 rapid chess games, 10 blitz chess games, and 5 standard chess games.
Standings after the penultimate round of the Biel Grandmaster finals
In the blitz chess category, after 10 games, Le Quang Liem achieved a total of 6.5 points and ranked second with 4 wins, 5 draws, and 1 loss. In the rapid chess category, Le Quang Liem achieved 2.5 points after 5 games to rank second. In the standard chess category, Le Quang Liem achieved a total of 3.5 points after 5 games, ranking first in the group with grandmaster Mishra Abhimanyu (USA).
After finishing three events, Le Quang Liem achieved a total of 24 points, ranked number 1 and won a place in the final round.
Le Quang Liem won the Biel Grandmaster for the third consecutive year.
In the final round, Le Quang Liem played explosively to break away and win the championship one round early. This is the third consecutive time that Vietnam's number 1 chess player has won the Biel Chess Festival and is one of the rare players to achieve this feat at the chess event that is more than half a century old.
Sharing after the victory, Le Quang Liem expressed his desire to equal the achievement of 4 championships achieved by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (France) from 2013 to 2016.
Le Quang Liem creates miracle at Biel Chess Festival
The impressive performance at the Biel Chess Festival helped Le Quang Liem receive a champion's prize of 10,000 Swiss francs (about 286 million VND). He also accumulated 10 Elo and moved up 1 rank, reaching 16th place in the world with a total Elo of 2,741.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/dai-kien-tuong-le-quang-liem-gianh-hat-trick-vo-dich-biel-grandmaster-196240725080240.htm
Comment (0)