Le Quang Liem earns Grandmaster Triathlon title at Biel Int’l Chess Festival
Top-ranked Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem won the Grandmaster Triathlon title at the Biel International Chess Festival in Switzerland after holding direct rival Andrey Esipenko to a draw in the last round on July 22.
Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem (R) in a match of Biel International Chess Festival (Photo: thanhnien.vn)
Hanoi (VNA) – Top-ranked Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem won theGrandmaster Triathlon title at the Biel International Chess Festival inSwitzerland after holding direct rival Andrey Esipenko to a draw in the last round onJuly 22.
The Grandmaster Triathlon was the centrepiece of thefestival. The eight-player tournament combined three different time formats(blitz, rapid and classic), counting towards the final score.
Le Quang Liem was convincing throughout the tournament, proving to be thestrongest player in classical and rapid chess while maintaining his high levelin blitz.
He won a total of 35.5 points out of the maximum 56 pointsacross the three categories, three points ahead of runner-up Andrey Esipenko(Russian) and six points clear of third-placed Dommaraju Gukesh (India).
In particular, the Vietnamese grandmaster performedbrilliantly in the classic segment, winning four games, drawing one and losingtwo, achieving a performance efficiency of a player with an Elo rating of 2780.
Thanks to the Biel triumph, Le Quang Liem earned anadditional 5.7 Elo points to reach 2728 and resume his career-best worldranking of 21st.
This is the first individual title for Quang Liem since hebagged a hat-trick of titles at the Asian tournament, the Summer Chess Classicand the World Open in 2019./.
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Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem (R) in a match of Biel International Chess Festival (Photo: thanhnien.vn) 
