The sixth match of the 2019 Sharjah Masters international chess tournament which is underway in the UAE saw Vietnamese grandmaster Quang Liem’s undefeated streak end as he lost to Yakubboev Nodirbek of Uzbekistan on March 28.

Vietnamese grandmaster Quang Liem

With the advantage of holding the black pawn, Liem (Elo rating 2715) controlled the game in the opening minutes. Despite this, he made a number of errors and went on to be beaten by Nodirbek, his Uzbek rival (Elo rating 2569), after 54 moves.

The defeat saw Liem drop to 25th place in the tournament’s ranking with four points after his disappointing performance.

Meanwhile, the talented young chess player Nguyen Anh Khoi (Elo rating 2484) held Nihal Sarin of India (Elo rating 2578) to a draw after 24 moves.

Young chess player Nguyen Anh Khoi 

After six matches, Khoi has earned 4.5 points and currently finds himself ranked in 12th position. More importantly, he kept his average performance rating above 2600 which keeps his aim of getting the Grandmaster title alive.

In the next set of matches, Khoi will face off against Gupta Abhijeet of India (Elo rating 1602) while his teammate, Liem, will meet Sundararajan Kidambi of India (Elo rating 2413).

VOV