Quang Liem defeated two world Top 7 players, jointly holding the top spot of GCT 2017

Vietnam's number one chess player caused a stir on the first day of the prestigious Grand Chess Tour in St. Louis (USA).

Quang Liem (left) in the match with Nakamura. Photo: GCT.

Le Quang Liem (elo 2,739) surprisingly defeated Fabiano Caruana (2,807) and Hikaru Nakamura (2,792), in between losing to Sergey Karjakin (2,773) with Black. This achievement helped him rise to the top of the table with Levon Aronian (2,799), Ian Nepomniachtchi (2,751) and Caruana, with four points after the first three rapid games (two wins, one draw). Quang Liem is the only wildcard holding the top of the table.

The Ho Chi Minh City player went from one surprise to another. He was nicknamed “The Roller Coaster” by the group of grandmasters commenting on the tournament. In the first game, Quang Liem had the advantage of going first against Caruana, but in the endgame, he fell into a position of two rooks against a queen and a rook. If this were a standard game, Quang Liem would have surrendered long ago. But in speed chess, anything can happen. So he did not give up.

Quang Liem’s small hope suddenly flashed brightly after Caruana’s 50…Ke8 move. His opponent’s wrong move helped him turn defeat into a spectacular victory. The commentary team was also stunned by the sudden reversal of the situation in just a few seconds. The number two American player had to surrender after only three moves, unable to escape the danger of being checkmated by the two White rooks.

Quang Liem is in good form recently. Photo:GCT.

The grandmasters in the commentary box all exclaimed at the same time. Cristian Chirila said: “Oh my God! This is not real!”. Yasser Seirawan was also really shocked: “What is happening? Oh my God. It is a winning position for Black.” Female grandmaster Jennifer Shahade could only shake her head: “I don’t understand what happened.”

After regaining their composure, they analyzed that Caruana had too many options in the endgame. But the world number three chose the riskiest option, leading to the fatal move 50. Immediately, Quang Liem was called to the commentary booth. Grandmaster Maurice Ashley asked: "Liem, you must be stunned because you not only escaped a completely losing position, but also won?"

Quang Liem answered quite calmly: “It is true that I feel lucky. I had a good start, but gradually lost the game in the middle game. I took more time and made bad moves, which put me at a disadvantage.

"But for some reason Caruana let me play 49.Rd7, which was quite risky for Black. I was really hoping for a draw,” he smiled slyly. “But suddenly I saw the checkmate.”

Not as lucky as the first game, Quang Liem had to accept defeat next, playing Black against the 2016 World Chess Champion Challenger – Sergey Karjakin. The 1991-born player tried to create a safe game, bringing the rook and knight to an endgame (losing a pawn). But White effectively exploited the pawn advantage to win.

Quang Liem appeared very confident, even though this was his first time being invited to participate in the most prestigious tournament in the world of chess. Photo: GCT.

This failure did not make Quang Liem lose confidence.This was evident in the way he outplayed Nakamura throughout the third game. With the lead again, Quang Liem gradually gained an advantage over the grandmaster who claimed to have no worthy opponent in the blitz category (about one or two minutes per game). But when the endgame came, with only about 20 seconds left for both sides to think, Nakamura made a fatal mistake with 70…Ke4. He could have forced Quang Liem to share the points with 70…Kc3.

Seeing his opponent's mistake, Quang Liem gradually pushed his pawn to a4 and then a5, then used the white king to block the black king's path. At this point, the black bishop alone could not withstand two pawns running together on the a and b columns. Nakamura surrendered after 75.b6 and the world number seven was frustrated. He stood up and turned away after shaking Quang Liem's ​​hand, then quickly left. As for Quang Liem, he continued to be called to commentate on this excellent victory.

All the attention on the first day of the competition was on Garry Kasparov, but Quang Liem was the main topic of the experts with his victory over two players in the Top 3 of the US. Meanwhile, the former Russian Chess Champion drew all three games against Karjakin, Nakamura and Leinier Dominguez (2.739).

At 1:00 a.m. on August 16 (Hanoi time), Quang Liem continued to play the next three rapid games of the Grand Chess Tour Rapid and Blitz tournament in St. Louis. He played Black in the two matches Dominguez and Nepomniachtchi, in between the previous game against Levon Aronian (2.799).

See detailed records of Quang Liem's ​​matches

Ranking after round 1.

According to VNE