Quang Liem wins world number six player

Quang Liem started the day with a draw with Wesley So when he held the black piece. In the second game, he held the white piece against world number two Fabiano Caruana. Quang Liem pushed the king’s wing high to put pressure, but lost a pawn and then failed.

In the last game, holding the black piece against Mamedyarov, Quang Liem played well and achieved a mistake rate of only 5%. That is, each move you make, on average, is equivalent to losing only 5% of a pawn. And the error rate of the number one Azerbaijani player is up to 88%. Quang Liem took full advantage of Mamedyarov’s mistake to attack the citadel, when the two sides merged into opposites. The game ended after only 23 moves.

Because each game quickly won two points, drew one point, lost no points, Quang Liem earned three points after three games. He tied for fifth with Mamedyarov and Richard Rapport. Leading the way are two American players with five points, Caruana and Leinier Dominguez. Hikaru Nakamura and So got four points, while Peter Svidler, Jeffery Xiong and Sam Shankland got just one.

On the second day of the test, on the morning of August 13, Hanoi time, Quang Liem led the white army to meet Nakamura at 3am. At 4:30, he took the black piece to fight Svidler. And at 6 o’clock, he played black against Rapport.

The St Louis Rapid Tournament, which takes place from August 12 to August 16 in St Louis city, Missouri, USA, is the fourth stage of the Grand Chess Tour 2021 system, and is the first time Quang Liem has been invited. Among the 10 players participating in the tournament, Quang Liem ranked lowest according to the standard chess Elo in August 2021 with 2,709 Elo. As for the fast Elo, Quang Liem ranked seventh with 2,744 Elo.

Xuan Binh