Vietnamese chess player Kim Phung is close to the championship title

On May 19, chess player Vo Thi Kim Phung defeated her Indian opponent Vaishali R in the 8th game to move closer to the championship of the women's division of the 2017 Asian Chess Championship held in Sichuan (China).

Phung leads the women's table of the 2017 Asian Chess Championship. Photo: TP

In this game, despite having to hold the black pieces against the second ranked player Vaishali R (Elo 2272, India), player Vo Thi Kim Phung still "won quickly" with sharp moves, forcing Vaishali R to accept defeat after only 29 moves.

This victory helped Kim Phung (Elo 2323) maintain the top position with 7 points after 8 unbeaten games (6 wins, 2 draws), 0.5 points more than the second-ranked Nakhbayeva Guliskhan (Kazakhstan, Elo 2321). The chance to win the championship is very close for Kim Phung because in the last game, she met a weak opponent Gomes Mary Ann (India, Elo 2318) while Guliskhan had to compete with the number 1 female player in Vietnam Hoang Thi Bao Tram (Elo 2371).

In game 8 of the open group, despite an excellent draw with 2014 world youth champion Lu Shanglei (China, Elo 2619), 20-year-old player Tran Tuan Minh (Elo 2537) no longer has hope of winning the championship as he is ranked 19th with 4.5 points.

According to TTO