The event, which is the first stop of the US$1.5 million 2020-2021 Champions Chess Tour, features seven players from the world’s top 10, including Magnus Carlsen (no. 1), Ding Liren (no. 3), Ian Nepomniachtchi (no. 4), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (no. 5), Levon Aronian (no. 6), Wesley So (no. 9), and Teimour Radjabov (no. 10).

Top Vietnamese chess player Le Quang Liem.

The others are Hikaru Nakamura, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Peter Svidler, Anish Giri, Sergey Karjakin, Alireza Firouzja, David Anton and Vidit Gujrathi, with David Anton being the only one from outside of the world’s top 30 in terms of standard chess.

A single round robin tournament is being played with five rounds per day. The top eight will advance to a six-day knockout, with two days each for the quarterfinals, semifinals and final.

After the first five rounds on November 23, Quang Liem had earned two points following one win over Sergey Karjakin (Round 5), two draws with Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Round 2) and Ding Liren (Round 3), and two defeats against Levon Aronian (Round 1) and Anish Giri (Round 4).

Concluding the first day, the Vietnamese chess ace settled for 11th place, level with Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Peter Svidler and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave on two points.

The 16 competitors in the Skilling Open.

To everyone’s surprise, Anish Giri occupied Day 1’s top spot with four points earned from wins over Quang Liem, Karjakin and Vidit Gujrathi, and draws against Vachier-Lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura. Meanwhile, chess king Magnus Carlsen ranks second with 3.5 points after three wins, one draw and one loss.

On the second day (November 24), Quang Liem will play Nakamura, Vachier-Lagrave, Gujrathi, Wesley So and Svidler.

The Skilling Open offered a total prize fund of US$100,000, with US$30,000 for the champion. Other stakes include US$15,000 for the runner-up, US$7,500 for semifinalists, US$5,000 for quarterfinals and US$2,500 for preliminaries.

Vietnamese chess ace beats world no. 2 to qualify for Banter Series semifinals

Vietnamese chess star Le Quang Liem outplayed world no. 2 Fabiano Caruana exceptionally well with a score of 5.5-3.5 on September 25, thus booking his place in the semifinals of the ongoing Banter Series 2020 tournament.

Liem beats chess world cup winner at online tournament, enters last eight

Le Quang Liem took down reigning FIDE World Cup champion, Azerbaijani grandmaster Teimour Radjabov, in the Banter Series on Tuesday. 

Vietnam falls flat at international online chess contest

Top division FIDE International Chess Olympiad 2020 saw Vietnam exit in penultimate position on Sunday.

Source: NDO