Quang Liem and Truong Son compete for the Gold Medal with China at AIMAG 5

Two Vietnamese players defeated host Turkmenistan to meet Li Chao and Wang Yue in the men's rapid chess team final today, September 26.

Quang Liem is expected to win the second gold medal for Vietnam at this Games. Photo: GCT.

Le Quang Liem and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son faced more difficulties than expected against the Turkmenistan pair Meilis Annaberdiev - Saparmyrat Atabayev in the semi-finals. In the final round of the qualifying round, the two sides also met and drew. It seemed that this was a strategy to conserve energy by Vietnam, but the same result was repeated in the semi-finals.

That forced the two teams to enter a tie-break, according to the "sudden death" format. White has five minutes, Black has four minutes, plus three seconds from move 61, if there is a draw, Black is considered to have won. With the courage of the world's 22nd ranked player, Quang Liem defeated Annaberdiev to bring Vietnam to the final with a total score of 2-1, when the Chinese opponents were waiting. Li and Wang had previously easily defeated Qatar's pair 2-0.

In the final, Quang Liem (Elo rapid chess 2,756) took on the responsibility of sitting at table one, meeting Wang (2,690). Truong Son (2,721) received Li (2,678).According to the tournament rules, if two teams tie, the team that wins the first table will win the match. If both games are tied, the first table pair will enter a “sudden death”. The final match starts at 6pm this afternoon (Hanoi time).

In the remaining three events of rapid chess, Vietnamese chess brought home two more bronze medals in the women's team (Thao Nguyen - Thanh An) and women's U23 (Mai Hung - Van Anh). Both Vietnamese duos lost 0-2 in the semi-finals to China. Meanwhile, the pair Le Tuan Minh - Nguyen Anh Khoi could not enter the men's U23 semi-finals.

According to VNE