VietNamNet Bridge – Playing the white chessmen but Quang Liem was defeated by the defending champion Nigel de Short (the UK, ELO 2690.) Liem has been knocked off from the top group, which is difficult for him to compete for the championship.


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This is the result of the 8th round yesterday, January 29. In the previous round, Le Quang Liem had a "strange" draw in the game against Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine. On online forums on chess, members were worried about the possibility of psychological impacts from this “scandal” on Liem.

That seemed right in the match against Nigel de Short yesterday.

Nigel de Short is the defending champion but Liem is more experienced and has better performance and higher ELO. It is most important that Liem had the advantage of holding the white chessmen. Liem and N.Short broke a draw at the Gilbrantar tournament last year.

However, Liem could not maintain necessary sanity so he lost to N.Short after 67 moves.

Because of this defeat, Liem lost 5.2 ELO, to 2712.8. More importantly, Liem has been pushed down to the 6th place with only 6 points, 1 point less than the two top players (N.Short and Vitiugov).

When the tournament has only two rounds left, even if Liem wins in the remaining matches, the championship will be still very far for him. Entering the top four will be also a challenge because besides the two top players with 7 points, Liem is behind three others who have 6.5 points.

In the ninth round which takes place today, Le Quang Liem will hold the black chessmen in the game against Vazquez Igarza Renier (Spain, Elo 2565).

Compiled by Nam Nguyen