Vietnam top chess player defeats two-time world champion

In the first game (ninth overall) of the third day, Liem, 20th on world ranking, played world number eighth Levon Aronian of the U.S., who became world champion in 2005 and 2017. The turning point came at the endgame when Liem’s knight took down Aroninan’s bishops and forced him to surrender after 57 moves.

A screenshot of Le Quang Liem playing Levon Aronian at the Generation Cup on September 21, 2022.

The next game saw Liem sharing the points with Indian prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa after 59 moves, then got another draw with Croatia’s Ivan Saric after 64 moves.

Liem got an easy win in the third game when he played Ukrainian veteran Vasyl Ivanchuk after just 35 moves.

With two wins and two draw on the third day of Generation Cup, Liem climbed to third on the standings with 20 points. With the current position, the ticket to the knockout stage is nearly secured for Liem. On Thursday, he will play the last games of preliminaries against Jan-Krzysztof Duda (Poland), Boris Gelfand (Israel) and Christopher Yoo Woojin (U.S.).

Placing above Liem is chess king Magnus Carlsen with 25 points and India’s Arjun Erigaisi with 24.

The Generation Cup being played online from September 18 to 25 is part of the world’s leading grand series, the $1.6-million Champion Chess Tour.

It has four days of preliminaries in which the 16 participants play each other once in rapid chess to qualify for the knockout second round.

The winner gets $150,000.