Why does the chess world believe that Le Quang Liem 'has enough strength to challenge the chess king'?

"Le Quang Liem is on the same level as Dinh Lap Nhan, when the Chinese player was at his peak", that is one of the most notable comments made by ChessTV when writing a commentary about the Vietnamese player.

Le Quang Liem is considered to have the same strength as the strongest chess players in the world - Photo archive

Is Le Quang Liem better than Dinh Lap Nhan at standard chess?

Immediately after making it to the 5th round of the World Chess Cup, Le Quang Liem continuously received compliments from the top chess community.

Notable among them is the commentary on ChessTV - one of the largest international chess websites, posted on November 13.

ChessTV did not hesitate to praise Le Quang Liem's ​​class and stable career. This site even compared Le Quang Liem with 3 famous players: Anish Giri (ranked 6th in the world ), Dinh Lap Nhan (Ding Liren, who was crowned chess champion in 2023) and Russian legend Vladimir Kramnik.

"Le Quang Liem is like Giri in his solidity, very difficult to beat - and has great technique. He is like Dinh Lap Nhan - in Dinh's peak state in his ability to master the game, calm demeanor," said ChessTV.

Notably, ChessTV made it clear that they only compared Le Quang Liem with "the peak state of Dinh Lap Nhan", meaning that for most of his career, the Chinese player could not compare to the Vietnamese player.

Why does ChessTV make such a judgment? They have a clear reason - Le Quang Liem overwhelms Dinh Lap Nhan in terms of head-to-head record in standard chess.

Specifically, according to the 2700Chess website, Le Quang Liem won 2 and drew 6 out of 8 times facing the Chinese player in standard chess.

Only when considering both blitz and rapid chess, Dinh Lap Nhan leads Le Quang Liem with a head-to-head score of 5-2 (10 draws). That means it can be seen that Le Quang Liem is stronger than Dinh Lap Nhan when only considering standard chess.

This is completely in line with Le Quang Liem's ​​"slow and steady" style. He is considered by many chess websites to be "one of the most stable players of the past decade".

Indeed, Le Quang Liem reached elo 2700 in 2011, when he was only 20 years old. And from around 2016, Le Quang Liem approached the top 20, then joined the top 20 not long after.

For nearly 10 years, the Vietnamese player has always been in the top 20 strongest players in the world, with the highest rank being 14, and the current rank being 22.

Le Quang Liem's ​​career fluctuation range is very low, showing his consistent performance.

Strength in the top 10

But that - according to the world chess community, is still really "wasteful". ChessTV boldly compared Le Quang Liem with Kramnik - the legend who was crowned "chess king" 3 times.

Of course, that comparison is a bit forced. Specifically, ChessTV assessed that Le Quang Liem can only be compared to Kramnik in terms of "risk management ability", meaning he has a calm demeanor similar to his Russian predecessor.

"Le Quang Liem should be in the world's top 10. He has the ability to do that, he just lacks a little opportunity," Ukrainian coach Mykhailo Vasyliev shared in an interview with Tuoi Tre newspaper.

Le Quang Liem defeated Dinh Lap Nhan twice - Photo archive

And that "opportunity" factor is what ChessTV mentioned a lot in its recent commentary. According to this site, Le Quang Liem is often "ignored" by many major tournaments because of his quietness and lack of attention. And he is also not part of the " sports powerhouse" group of the US - Russia - China - India.

The truth is that Le Quang Liem regularly defeats the world's top players whenever given the chance.

In addition to Dinh Lap Nhan, Le Quang Liem has a record of 6 wins, 5 losses, and 6 draws against Fabio Caruana - who is currently ranked number 3 in the world, and was the runner-up in chess in 2018.

Against the "lightning god" Hikaru Nakamura, Le Quang Liem also won 6 matches, besides 20 losses. This statistic shows that the Vietnamese player still has some chance if the two meet in a big tournament.

ChessTV is absolutely right when it says "Le Quang Liem is capable of entering the world's top 10, and even dreams further". Specifically, that is a position in the Candidates Tournament - a tournament that gathers the 8 strongest players to challenge the contemporary "chess king".

HUY DANG

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/vi-sao-lang-co-vua-tin-le-quang-liem-thuc-luc-du-thach-thuc-vua-co-2025111410522669.htm