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| Le Quang Liem |
The world’s number 27 Le Quang Liem of Vietnam held his higher-ranked Hikaru Nakamura of the US, number 6th in the world, to a tie yesterday and remains his second place on the table after the seventh round of the 2011 Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Germany.
The encounter between the two rivals was breathtakingly with exchanges of tit for tat for hours before the two agreed to a draw after 57 moves each.
In the first leg, Liem and Nakamura had created a tie.
Liem has become unbeaten after seven rounds of the ongoing tournament, garnering a win and six draws.
With 4 points, Liem is ranking second on the table after leader Wladimir Kramnik of Russia, the world number 5, with 6 points.
Defending champion Ruslan Ponomariov lost to Anish Giri of the Netherlands and slumped to fourth place with 3 points, after Giri at third with 3.5 points.
Liem will have a decisive match in the eighth round today in Dortmund when he takes on leader Kramnik. They drew in the first leg.
Standing after the 7th round:
| Ranking | Name | Nation | Points |
| 1 | Wladimir Kramnik | Russia | 6 |
| 2 | Le Quang Liem | Vietnam | 4 |
| 3 | Anish Giri | Holland | 3.5 |
| 4 | Rusland Ponomariov | Ukraine | 3 |
| 5 | Hikaru Nakamura | The US | 2.5 |
| 6 | Georg Meier | Germany | 2 |
