Grandmaster Le Quang Liem-Best Grandmaster of VietNam
Le Quang Liem (born March 13, 1991 in Ho Chi Minh City) is a Vietnamese chess grandmaster. He is the number 1 player in Vietnam and one of the top male players in Asia. He is the 2013 World Blitz Chess Champion, the 2019 Asian Champion, a 2-time Aeroflot Open Champion, and a 3-time HDBank International Chess Champion. Le Quang Liem was taught to play chess by his older brother Le Quang Long at the age of 7. He won the World Chess Championship under 14 in 2005, a 2-time silver medal at the World Youth Chess Championship under 10 and 12 (2001 and 2003), and a gold medal at the Asian Chess Championship under 16 in 2006. In addition, Le Quang Liem also won a number of gold medals at the Southeast Asian regional level. After an excellent performance at the 2006 World Chess Olympiad held in Italy, defeating 5 international grandmasters and drawing 3 other international grandmasters, Liem was specially promoted to international grandmaster. In 2008, at the age of 17, Liem participated in the World Youth Chess Championship for under-20s in Turkey. Although his performance was not high (8 points/13 games, tied for 15th place), it helped Liem accumulate more international competition experience. At the 2008 World Olympiad, he scored 8 points / 11 games (6 wins, 4 draws, 1 loss, including a win over Smeets, a draw with Karjakin, Bruzon, and Nghe Hoa), helping Vietnam enter the top 10 in a Chess Olympiad for the first time (9/154 participating countries and territories), and also won first place in Group B.
The first international tournament Liem participated in that year was TaTa Stell, which took place from January 14 to 30, 2011. He was invited to compete in Group B with 14 players. In the first rounds, Liem was tired and had poor results. Therefore, despite speeding up in the following rounds, he only achieved a fourth place with 7.5 points / 13 games (+5 =5 -3), in which he won against Group B champion McShane.
On the World Chess Federation (FIDE) rankings, Le Quang Liem is ranked 15th with an elo of 2,739. He is currently the coach of the chess team at Webster University (USA), where he received a full scholarship to study abroad and graduated with honors. He also serves as the Director of the SPICE Chess Academy in the US.
The chess powerhouse of India has 5 faces in the top 10 including current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju, Arjun Erigasi (world rank 4), former world champion Viswanathan Anand, prodigy Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Praggnanandhaa. China has 2 representatives, former world champion Ding Liren and Yu Yangyi. Nodirbek Abdusattorov, considered a chess prodigy from Uzbekistan, is also present alongside veteran player Sakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan).
The remaining face in the top 10 is Le Quang Liem, the 2013 world blitz chess champion. "Coming from Ho Chi Minh City, Liem emerged as a Vietnamese chess prodigy. Achieving the title of grandmaster at the age of 15, he quickly asserted himself. His intelligence and diligence helped Liem create many remarkable matches, creating a reputation in the international arena," top10asia magazine introduced Le Quang Liem.
Video of Le Quang Liem playing against 35 young players:
