Sports & Entertainment » Sports
Quang Liem gets four draws at Sparkassen
  • | VietnamNet | July 25, 2011 07:46 PM

Vietnamese chess star Le Quang Liem, who has scored victories at recent world-class tournaments, had a good start at the 2011 Sparkassen Chess-Meeting in Dortmund, Germany by two draws with leading world rivals.

Le Quang Liem

The Sparkassen Chess-Meeting takes place at Dortmund from July 21 through 31. It is an elite chess tournament held every summer in Dortmund, Germany.

Dortmund is an invite-only event, and only the strongest grandmasters are invited. The exception is that one slot at Dortmund is awarded to the winner of the annual Aeroflot Open in Moscow, a tournament that anyone with an Elo of at least 2550 is welcome to enter.

The tournament is usually played in a round-robin or double round-robin format.

At the last year’s Sparkassen, Vietnam’s Liem finished second after Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine and in the same year, became the first Southeast Asian to win the Aeroflot Open, the world\'s most difficult open chess event, twice in a row.

Liem, whose world ranking has moved from the 49th to the 27th place, will compete with 5 other players in the first leg of the Sparkassen: Wladimir Kramnik of Russia, the world’s No. 5, Hikaru Nakamura of Japan (No. 6); Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine (No. 10); Anish Giri of the Netherlands (No.40); and Georg Meier of Germany (No.90).

Liem got four draws against Geog Meier (Germany – Elo 2,656), Nakamura (Japanese American – Elo 2,770, the world’s sixth player), Kramnik (Russia – the world’s fifth player) and Anish Giri, ranking third out of the six-player list.

Wladimir Kramnik is taking the lead at the event with 3.5 points. Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine, number 10 in the world, follows with 2.5 points.

In the fifth and last round of the first leg, Liem will face Ponomariov. At the last year’s edition in Dortmund, Liem finished second after Ponomariov.

Leave your comment on this story