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Le Quang Liem wins Kolkata Open

PeterDoggers
| 0 | Chess Event Coverage
Le Quang LiemLe Quang Liem took clear first at the strong Kolkata Open today. With a quick draw in the last round the Vietnamese GM (2602) finished on a splendid 8/10 (a 2777 performance), ahead of Mamedyarov and Filippov, who shared second place with half a point less. Nigel Short ended on 7/10 which was a performance just slightly below his new 2706 rating.

The 4th Kolkata Open was organized by the local, Alekhine Chess Club and took place September 1-10 in Kolkata, India. The strong open (114 participants with 34 Grandmasters and 27 International Masters) was dedicated to the Year of Russia in India and had two 2700+ players in the field: Shakhryiar Mamedyarov and Nigel Short.

The tournament got international attention due to the Tkachiev-incident, but enough has been said about that - let's return to chess. Nigel Short was among the leaders after three rounds, as we reported earlier, but then fell back with three draws in a row, followed by a loss against Filippov. Finishing with 2.5/3 the Englishman could limit the (rating) damage to a minimum.

Nigel Short

Nigel Short in the Kolkata Open



Mamedyarov's start wasn't impressive with a draw against IM Sriram Jha in round 2, a loss to Le Quang Liem in round 4 followed by a draw against IM Himanshu Sharma. However, the top seed from Azerbaijan finished strongly and his 4.5/5 in the second half was enough to reach a shared second place with Anton Filippov, Uzbekistan's second grandmaster (behind Rustam Kasimdzhanov).

mamedyarov-gagunashvili

The top seed's name is Shakhryiar in India - here against Gagunashvili



Le Quang Liem became the deserved winner after finishing on an undefeated 8/10. He beat for instance strong GMs like Mamedyarov, Ganguly and Filippov - the latter with Black in a Caro-Kann in the penultimate round.

filippov-liem

A crucial game in the tournament: Filippov-Liem, 0-1



Kolkata Open 2009 Final Standings (top 30)
Kolkata 2009


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PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.

Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.

Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.

As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


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