Quang Liem beats reigning world champion at Charity Cup
VOV.VN - Vietnamese leading chess player Le Quang Liem sprung a surprise at the ongoing Charity Cup as he successfully beat reigning world champion Jan Krzysztof Duda of Poland in the third day of the competition.
Liem claimed victory after defeating the strong Polish rival in 79 moves.
The Vietnamese grandmaster continued recording a draw against Harikrishna of India and defeating Eric Hansen of Canada in his 10th and 11th matches, respectively. However, Liem lost out to Ding Liren of China in the 12th game.
After 12 matches, Liem earned 27 points to top the tournament’s ranking and earn a ticket to enter the quarterfinals.
In the three final matches, Liem is set to face off against Magnus Carlsen of Norway, David Navara of the Czech Republic, and Richard Rapport of Hungary.
The Charity Cup is taking place from March 19 to March 26 and is the second tournament in the grand series Champion Chess Tour. Similar to the Airthings Masters, 16 players are competing in the first stage in a round-robin format, with US$750 awarded for every winning game and US$250 for a draw.
The top eight players in the first stage will advance to the knockout stage which features four-game matches, one each for the quarterfinals and semi-finals, along with two matches for the final. If at this point the opponents are still tied, two blitz games will follow, then an Armageddon game if needed, where white has five minutes compared to black's four, but black only needs a draw to win. The ultimate winner of the tournament will pocket US$25,000.
