Players Le Quang Liem and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son will meet in the quarterfinals of the winning bracket of the second place ChessKid Cup, of the Champions Chess Tour.
Quang Liem defeated 16-year-old Indian Grandmaster (GM) Bharath Subramaniyam H in all three games, in the opening match at the morning tournament of May 23, Hanoi time. In the first game, he used combo moves such as horse racing, or drawing to catch the car to win. In the second game, Quang Liem again experimented and threatened to finish after three moves, causing the young opponent to surrender. It only took one more draw to win the match, but the number one player in Vietnam could do more to win 5-3.
Quang Liem (left) and Truong Son at the 2017 Asian Indoor Games in Turkmenistan.
Truong Son struggled more because he had to meet Super Grandmaster Dmitry Andreikin in the first match. After the first two games were drawn, Artemiev took the lead in the third game in what was considered an even game. The Russian player took advantage of every small mistake of Truong Son to win and take a 2-1 lead.
In the fourth game that was forced to win, Truong Son completed his goal when he caught his opponent's back, bringing the match into armageddon. He caught a pawn in the middle and used this advantage to take advantage of the late game and won 3-2 on aggregate.
Truong Son's opponent in the quarterfinals of the winning branch is Quang Liem, in the match that took place on the evening of May 23. The loser in this pairing still has a chance to progress to the tournament because ChessKid Cup applies a double elimination format.
The other representative of Vietnam at the tournament also played in second place, Le Tuan Minh, but he lost 0,5-2,5 to GM Oparin in the first match and had to go down to the losing bracket against GM Vugar Rasulov.
The main round of the ChessKid Cup takes place from May 22 to May 5, the second tournament of the Champions Chess Tour 26 system, after Airthings Masters and Chessable Masters. All three Vietnamese players passed the qualifying round, but were not in the Top 5 so they played in second place.
Second place consists of 16 players competing in a dual category, with a prize fund of 71.500 USD. Attendees will receive at least $3.000 in prize money. A player who loses two matches will be disqualified, and the winner of each class will not lose more than one match. Besides Quang Liem and Andreikin, second place also has Super Grandmasters like Pavel Eljanov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov or Vladimir Fedoseev.
Xuan Binh
