Quang Liem reveals the secret of playing blitz chess

After finishing the first day of the St Louis Super Championship with the best performance, equal to Hikaru Nakamura, Quang Liem was retained for an interview by the organizers. Grandmaster Maurice Ashley asked: “What is the difference between fast chess and blitz chess, that makes you produce such different results?”. Quang Liem replied: “The key thing about blitz chess is to play fast and avoid serious mistakes. Players don’t need to play too carefully, but only make good moves, avoid mistakes, and try to go faster against their opponents. player. To play fast chess and good standard chess, we need a lot more practice than chess. Because I think playing chess requires more natural ability, just go and see what happens.”

Quang Liem won the World Blitz chess championship in 2013, in front of a group of players like Alexander Grischuk, Ian Nepomniachtchi or Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. Before entering the blitz chess content at the St Louis super tournament, belonging to the Grand Chess Tour system, Quang Liem finished last in the fast chess content. But, he won five, drew two and lost two of the first nine blitz games, to climb to eighth. Only Nakamura achieved six points like Quang Liem on the morning of August 15, Hanoi time.

In the ninth game, Quang Liem prevailed to win against Nakamura himself, but then lost in reverse. After the match, Quang Liem said that he regretted this defeat. And Nakamura also considers him lucky. The American chess player said: “The game against Quang Liem I played the worst of the day, but I had a bit of luck. I still have the ability to go to moves that are not entirely serious mistakes. Even if the chess is weak, I still tried to fight and got lucky when Quang Liem left water.”

Quang Liem’s ​​August 2021 Blitz Elo is 2,690, while Nakamura is at the top of the world with Elo 2,900. After nine games, Quang Liem earned another 47 Elo to rise to 29th in the world in Blitz. And Nakamura lost 8 Elo, still ranked number one but equal to Magnus Carlsen.

Quang Liem and Nakamura both had the opportunity to improve their performance in the remaining nine games of blitz, which took place on the morning of August 16, Hanoi time. This is also the last day of the competition. Nakamura is at the top of the St Louis super prize, while Quang Liem is eighth.

In fast chess, each player has 25 minutes, adding 10 seconds after each move. In blitz chess, each player has only five minutes, adding two seconds after each move. On August 15, Quang Liem won two games when his opponent ran out of time, although the game was quite even.

Xuan Binh