Quang Liem officially becomes an international super grandmaster
An excellent performance at the Capablanca chess tournament (Cuba) helped Vietnam's No. 1 chess player Le Quang Liem officially become an international super grandmaster when he reached elo 2,700 yesterday.
This is the first time a Vietnamese chess player has received this honor. Yesterday, right after Le Quang Liem drew with the reigning U.20 World Champion Andreikin (Russia) to continue leading the Capablanca chess tournament, the website www.2700chess.com, which specializes in daily updates on the elo and rankings of international super grandmasters (DKTQT), listed Le Quang Liem in the list of 40 super DKTQT. Accordingly, with an undefeated record from the Capablanca tournament, Le Quang Liem (born March 13, 1991) was awarded 13.3 points to jump from elo 2687 to elo 2700.3.
Quang Liem is still leading the Capablanca tournament.
The title of Super International Chess Player is given by the world chess community to players who have reached the elo milestone of 2700 and currently there are only 40 players in the world who have this honor, in which Quang Liem is the 4th Asian player on the list along with Anand (India), Wang Hao, Wang Yue (China) and is the only player from Southeast Asia to have this pride. In addition, he is also the second youngest player in the world to be in the top 40 Super International Chess Player, the person younger than Quang Liem (20 years old) is the player with dual Italian and American nationality - Caruana (19 years old) with elo 2716.
From Cuba, Quang Liem excitedly said: “By joining the ranks of the international super chess players, I will have many opportunities to compete in major international tournaments which are very prestigious and have higher prize money, which will help me strive even harder to conquer more heights. I am extremely happy with this achievement and would like to thank my family, relatives, coaches, the Chess Federation and the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Ho Chi Minh City for giving me this opportunity to rise up.”
Since the World Chess Federation (FIDE) only updates the rankings of chess players every two months, Quang Liem will not have an official ranking until July. If he maintains his current good form, Quang Liem will likely continue to raise his elo even higher.
Returning to the Capablanca chess tournament, the draw between Quang Liem and Andreikin helped both of them get 4.5 points, the same number of points as Navara (Czech Republic), who won against Bruzon (Cuba). With the best goal difference, Quang Liem still occupies the top position in the rankings.
In the 8th game, Quang Liem played white against Bruzon. This is the player Quang Liem defeated in the first leg. A win against Bruzon in the second leg will be an important step for Quang Liem to enter the 2 decisive matches for the championship against Navara and Ivanchuk (Ukraine).
According to Thanh Nien
