Vietnam chess ace says goodbye to int’l bullet championship

Le Tuan Minh at the national chess championship in 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Xuan Binh

Minh concluded the tournament in the fourth position after a close match with Naroditsky. Both players chased each other on the scoreboard, as Naroditsky led 4-2 but Minh quickly leveled. The score was 5-4 for Naroditsky at the break. Minh came back stronger to lead 6-5, but Naroditsky kept chasing to make the score 8.5-8.5 before the last match.

In the last match, Minh played white and enjoyed a bigger chance to win, but he made a mistake in his last few moves, fell into the opponent’s trap to face checkmate.

Naroditsky was surprised because he didn’t think that he could win this match, while Minh clapped and congratulated his opponent.

With the fourth position, Minh received $8,000.

Naroditsky continued to play Andrew Tang to compete for a final slot but lost 8-11. Tang faced Hikaru Nakamura in the final and also lost 8-11. This is the third title for Nakamura in this tournament.

Bullet Chess Championship was hosted by chess.com for the first time in 2019 with a prize pool of $15,000. It’s considered the top bullet chess tournament in the world. In 2022, the prize pool went up to $100,000