Quang Liem ends 2016 at 29th place in FIDE world rankings

NDO—Vietnam’s chess ace Le Quang Liem will wrap up 2016 as one of the world’s top 30 players after jumping three places to 29th position in the latest FIDE standard chess rankings for December with an Elo rating of 2718.

Grandmaster Le Quang Liem
Grandmaster Le Quang Liem

This is the first time since May 2013 that Grandmaster Liem has returned to the top 30 masters of the world chess circle.

The 25-year-old star remained the world’s No. 15 in the rapid chess event and No. 26 in the blitz chess category with respective Elo ratings of 2761 and 2747.

Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, Vietnam’s second-best player, dropped one place to 157th in the world standard chess rankings with an Elo rating of 2629.

Talented Norwegian chess player Magnus Carlsen topped both the standard and rapid chess rankings with respective Elo ratings of 2840 and 2906.

Carlsen successfully defended his world chess championship title by beating Russian challenger Sergey Karjakin in New York on November 30.

Chinese Ding Liren dominated the world’s year-end blitz rankings with an Elo rating of 2875.