Nineteen-year old Le Quang Liem’s second place finish in an elite chess tournament has caught the chess world’s attention.
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| Quang Liem finishes in second place at the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2010. |
The Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2010 saw the likes of international grandmasters (two former World Champions and one former World Champion runner-up) competing against each other. Vietnam’s Le Quang Liem, just 19 years old, impressed spectators by taking second place in this elite international tournament.
Le Quang Liem was invited to the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting after winning the the Aeroflot Open earlier this year, but he was nominally bottom rated due to his having the lowest Elo rating score in comparison with those of all of his other opponents.
The Vietnamese grandmaster was comfortable and at the top of his game. In his final match with the World Champion, Ponomariov, Quang Liem earned 2 wins, 7 draws and 1 defeat, for a total score of 5.5.
With this score, Quang Liem made a big surprise when he came in second place, and was ranked even above Vladimir Kramnik, former World Champion and nine-time Dortmund champion, as well as other elite chess players such as Mamedyarov, Naiditsch and Leko.
According to the World Chess Federation (FIDE), at the age of 19, Le Quang Liem is currently listed in the world’s top 50 players. Liem is also Vietnam’s leading grandmaster with the highest Elo rating score ever recorded by a Vietnamese with a remarkable achievement record of winning the Under-14 World Youth Chess Championship in 2005 and receiving a gold medal for the Under-16 Asia Youth Chess Championship in 2006.
Now, with his decisive second place finish at the Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2010, Quang Liem is likely to be invited to other important tournaments to battle with the world’s best players.
Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting 2010 Chart | |||||||
No | Chess player | Nationality | Match | Win | Draw | Defeat | Score |
1 | Ponomariov | Ukraina | 10 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 6,5 |
2 | Quang Liem | Vietnam | 10 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 5,5 |
3 | Kramnik | Russia | 10 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 5 |
4 | Mamedyarov | Azerbaijan | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
5 | Naiditsch | Germany | 10 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
6 | Leko | Hungary | 10 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
* The Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting, played in the double round-robin format with the same scoring calculation as other international chess tournaments (a win scores 1 point, a draw 0.5 point and a defeat 0 point), is an elite and invite-only annual chess tournament. Each year, the tournament organisers carefully select the 6 best players based on their international achievement record and their Elo rating score.
In each match, a draw is decided by the arbiter, not on mutual agreement between the chess players. The decision is made when it appears that neither side will win or when the same position occurs 3 times.
A draw in the final round with the former World Champion Ponomariov earns Quang Liem second place.
