On July 26 (Swiss time), Le Quang Liem narrowly won the Grand Master Triathlon championship of the Biel 2023 Chess Festival in Switzerland.
Le Quang Liem won the Grand Master Triathlon category - Photo: BIELCHESSFESTIVAL
Le Quang Liem (Elo 2,728) entered the 7th (final) standard chess match without any right to decide in the Grand Master Triathlon category. He was only in second place with 31 points, 0.5 points behind the leader Vincent Keymer. Moreover, the number 1 Vietnamese player also had to hold the black pieces against Czech master David Navara (Elo 2,689).
And in fact, the battle of wits between Quang Liem and David Navara was extremely fierce. Neither player could gain the upper hand nor make any mistakes, leading to a draw after 37 moves.
Meanwhile, a surprise happened in the next game when German chess prodigy Vincent Keymer (Elo 2,690) lost to Indian champion Arjun Erigaisi (Elo 2,710). Before that, Vincent Keymer had been undefeated in the first 6 standard chess games.
Vincent Keymer (right) lost in the final game - Photo: BIELCHESSFESTIVAL
With this result, Quang Liem has risen to win the Grand Master Triathlon championship with a total of 32.5 points (including 19 points for standard chess, 5 points for rapid chess and 8.5 points for blitz chess). Vincent Keymer ranked second with 31.5 points, followed by David Navara (30.5 points).
This is the second consecutive time Quang Liem has won the Biel Chess Festival. The prize for the number 1 Vietnamese player is 10,000 Swiss francs (more than 268 million VND).
Le Quang Liem can reach 16th place in the world
In addition, with his impressive performance at the tournament, Quang Liem accumulated an additional 11.8 Elo. In particular, the win against the 3-time Chinese champion Yu Yangyi alone brought Quang Liem up to 5.1 Elo.
Le Quang Liem won the Biel Chess Festival for the second time - Photo: BIELCHESSFESTIVAL
Thus, Quang Liem's Elo rating will increase to 2,740 and he will probably be ranked 16th in the world on the World Chess Federation (FIDE) rankings announced in early August. That will be the highest position Quang Liem has ever achieved in his career.
At the Biel Chess Festival 2023, Le Quang Liem will compete in the Grand Master Triathlon category. In this category, players will compete in 3 events: rapid chess (win 2 points, draw 1 point), blitz chess (win 1 point, draw 0.5 points) and standard chess (win 4 points, draw 1.5 points). The player with the highest total score will win the championship .
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