Le Quang Liem defeated Jeffery Xiong in the third round of the World Cup, "chess king" Gukesh was shockingly eliminated

(NLDO) - A comfortable 1.5 - 0.5 victory over American chess player Jeffery Xiong brought Le Quang Liem into the fourth round of the 2025 World Cup, equaling his highest achievement ever.

In the return match of the third round on November 8, Le Quang Liem (Elo 2,729) holding the white pieces agreed to a draw with Jeffery Xiong (USA, 2,649) after 40 moves. Although there were a few moments when the game was somewhat disadvantageous, Le Quang Liem still calmly turned the situation around, forcing his opponent to accept a draw.

Le Quang Liem did not give Jeffery Xiong a chance to take revenge in the second leg.

This result was enough for the number one Vietnamese player to advance after he defeated Jeffery Xiong 1-0 in the first leg despite having to play black. By reaching the fourth round this time, Le Quang Liem equaled his personal best record at the World Cup when he reached the fourth round twice in the 2013 and 2019 tournaments.

Le Quang Liem advances to round 4 of World Cup

In the fourth round - taking place on November 11 - Le Quang Liem will meet the winner of the match between Bogdan-Daniel Deac (Romania, 2.655) and Karthik Venkataraman (India, 2.576). Deac and Venkataraman drew both sets in the third round and will play a tie-break to determine the right to continue.

Experts await the confrontation between Quang Liem and Nguyen Thai Dai Van (Czech Republic) in the quarter-finals.

With stable form and not-so-formidable opponents, Le Quang Liem has a good chance of advancing to round 5, where he will meet one of two German players, Matthias Bluebaum (2,680) or Alexander Donchenko (2,641).

Anish Giri (left) lost to Alexander Donchenko

Alexander Donchenko just made a miracle when he eliminated heavyweight opponent Anish Giri (2,769) in round 3, even though the Dutch player is hundreds of Elo ranks higher than him.

"Chess King" Gukesh Dommaraju was eliminated by Frederik Svane in the third round

Shocks continue to be created at the 2025 World Cup taking place in Goa, India. After the elite players such as Wesley So, Ian Nepomniachtchi... were stopped early in the second round, just after the third round of standard chess matches, an earthquake broke out when "chess king" Gukesh Dommaraju (India, 2,752) unexpectedly lost to Frederik Svane (Germany, 2,638) with a score of 0.5-1.5!

Source: https://nld.com.vn/le-quang-liem-thang-jeffery-xiong-vong-3-world-cup-vua-co-gukesh-bi-loai-soc-196251109071134698.htm