Quang Liem pockets US$15,000 after fourth-place finish at Romania Grand Tour

Vietnamese chess star Le Quang Liem won four from a maximum nine points on the last day of the blitz chess (November 10) at the 2019 Superbet Rapid & Blitz in Romania to wrap up his campaign finishing fourth place overall and pocketing US$15,000 in prize money.

Monday, November 11, 2019 03:27

Le Quang Liem (L) and Anton Korobov (Ukraine) during their game at the Romania Grand Tour.

Liem outplayed Anton Korobov (Ukraine) in his first blitz match on Sunday to move within only half a point from the top spot of the standings, before losing the next two against Sergey Karjakin (Russia) and Levon Aronian (Armenia).

The following four games saw the Vietnamese player draw twice with Viswanathan Anand (Indian) and Vladislav Artemiev (Russia) and lose twice against Wesley So (Philippines) and Anish Giri (Netherlands).

The next two successive wins against Fabiano Caruana (US) and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan) were not enough to bring Liem to the top of the table as he settled for fourth place overall with a total of 19 points, behind Levon Aronian and Sergey Karjakin (20 points) and Viswanathan Anand (19.5 points).

The encouraging result at the Romania Grand Tour earned Liem 88 additional Elo rating points, lifting him to 15th position in the FIDE’s blitz world rankings with an Elo rating of 2,768.

Quang Liem was among the two best blitz chess performers of the tournament, alongside Karjakin, with 11 points from 18 games. The Vietnamese star was also the best among the three invitees, as the other two, Korobov and Artemiev, both scored 18 points.

Next up for Liem will be the chess tournament, slated for December 1-8, at the 30th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games 2019 in the Philippines.