Zone 3.3 Championship in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Bobby Ang

Final Top Standings

1. GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2676, 7.5/9

2. GM Nguyen Ngoc Truongson VIE 2659, 7.0/9

3. GM Zhang Zhong SIN 2614, 6.5/9

4-5. GM Oliver Barbosa PHI 2501, GM Cao Sang VIE 2480, 6.0/9

6-13. FM Le Tuan Minh VIE 2393, GM Eugene Torre PHI 2449, GM Darwin Laylo PHI 2499, GM Nguyen Anh Dung VIE 2461, GM John Paul Gomez PHI 2524, GM Richard Bitoon PHI 2422, IM Rolando Nolte PHI 2394, GM Dao Thien Hai VIE 2482, 5.5/9

Total of 44 participants

Time Control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves, then 30 minutes play-to-finish with a 30 second increment added per move starting move 1.

GM Le Quang Liem (born March 13, 1991, he is currently 24 years of age) won the Asian Zonal Championship with a round to spare. Together with his compatriot Nguyen Ngoc Truongson, he will be representing Zone 3.3 (basically Southeast Asia + Mongolia + Japan + South Korea) in the 2015 World Cup which will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan later this year.

Back in January 2011 there was a bit of rivalry between Wesley So and Liem as to who would become the first from Zone 3.3 to join the 2700 club. This competition was won by the Vietnamese. In 2011 he conquered the Moscow Aeroflot Open (the strongest open in the world — he also won the same event in 2010, the only player to have ever won it twice), played well in the Dortmund SuperGM tournament (second place behind Kramnik but ahead of Ponomariov, Giri, Nakamura and George Meier) and tied for 1st in the Elite Group of the Capablanca Memorial with Vassily Ivanchuk (ahead of Andreikin, Nava, Leinier Dominguez and Lazaro Bruzon). By September 2011 Le Quang Liem’s FIDE rating was already at his peak of 2717.

Liem’s rating is now 2676, does that mean that his playing strength has deteriorated since then? I really doubt that; consider that in 2013 he won the World Blitz Chess Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk. One can argue that in fast time controls luck is a big factor, but the championship was held over 30 rounds so luck is held to the minimum. More likely it is because he accepted a scholarship to Webster University (Missouri, USA) starting June 2013 and since then he has been playing in a lot of American tournaments.

Full article here.

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar