Nguyen Hoang Yen won the silver medal in the Asian women's individual chess event.

This is the sixth time that Vietnam's number 1 female chess player has finished second in the continental arena, after losing the Queen title at the last minute in 2010, 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2023.

This result was not beyond the experts' predictions when Luu Hoan was too strong, maintaining his form throughout the tournament, including defeating Nguyen Hoang Yen in the group stage.

Nguyễn Hoàng Yến giành HCB cờ tướng cá nhân nữ châu Á- Ảnh 1. — Liu Huan (left) beat Nguyen Hoang Yen both times they met at the tournament.

From Singapore, the 32-year-old player confided after the final match ended very late on the night of December 5: "Winning against former teammate Ngo Lan Huong to win the right to compete in the final is a great success for Yen. It's not that she didn't have the advantage when she won 90% of the game, but because she was too cautious and refused to change pieces to gradually win the endgame, she gave Liu Huan a chance to counterattack. It's a pity, perhaps Yen hasn't had the luck to win the championship yet!"

Nguyễn Hoàng Yến giành HCB cờ tướng cá nhân nữ châu Á- Ảnh 2. — Nguyen Hoang Yen won the runner-up position for the 6th time.

If the women's ranking is not difficult to predict when China is almost certain to win the championship, the runner-up position is just a race between Vietnam and Singapore, then in the men's tournament, the final result is really shocking. After many scandals caused by the top players in recent times, China only sent to the tournament two players under 18 years old, Liu Baihong and Yang Shizhe.

Nguyễn Hoàng Yến giành HCB cờ tướng cá nhân nữ châu Á- Ảnh 3. — Liu Bai Hong (left) and Duong The Triet

These two young talents dominated the tournament taking place in the Lion Island. In the final match, 15-year-old prodigy Liu Baihong (China) defeated famous player Wong Hok Kim (Hong Kong, China) after two games to officially become the youngest Asian chess champion in history. Yang Shizhe also finished in the top three, affirming the dominance of Chinese chess on the continental and world levels.

Liu Baihong was born in 2009. Last year, he won the 4th World Youth Chess Championship held in the US, thereby being crowned China's youngest national grandmaster. Liu Baihong learned chess in kindergarten and has won impressive awards at many competitions in Jiangsu.

In 2019, at the age of 10, Liu Baihong was recruited into the Jiangsu province youth team, and from there received systematic training under the guidance of famous coaches such as: Tu Sieu, Truong Cuong, Phan Chan Ba, Truong Than Hoanh...

He has progressed very quickly and the two World Youth Championships in 2023 and the Asian Championship in 2024 say it all about the boy whose name will be mentioned a lot in the future.