VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese Grandmaster (GM) Le Quang Liem ranked seventh at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival 2018, which concluded in England early February 2.

Grandmaster Le Quang Liem. — Photo zing.vn

The HCM City-born player beat Daniil Dubov of Russia in the final 10th match after 44 moves.

Earlier, No 6 seed Liem had also defeated Andrey Esipenko of Russia in the ninth game after 64 moves.

With five wins and five draws, Liem, a former world blitz chess champion, had 7.5 points to rank seventh. He was deducted one Elo step to 2.736 as he drew with rivals who had Elo ratings lower than him.

Seven players in the event finished with 7.5 points. Levon Aronian of Armenia, who has an Elo rating of 2.797, triumphed on a tie-breaker. Aronian had earlier won this event in 2005.

Japanese-American chess GM Hikaru Nakamura (Elo rating 2.781) Hungarian GM Richard Rapport were the runners-up. Nakamura has won the Chess Festival four times in the past.

The Gibraltar Chess Festival is the most popular open-chess tournament in the world. The 2018 edition attracted many participants, including 12 players with Elo rating of 2.700 onwards. Liem was one of them. 

Source: VNS