Vietnamese chess player reaches career-high world ranking

Liem, the defending Biel Grandmaster champion, played white and defeated Bassem Amin, the number one player in Africa on Wednesday after gaining the upperhand in mid-game. After making multiple mistakes, Amin was unable to escape in the end game and surrendered after 45 moves.

This win helped Liem gained 4.5 more Elo points, bringing his Elo rating to 2,737 and peaking at 18th in the world, above grandmasters such as Alexander Grischuk, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Veselin Topalov. After two consecutive wins of classical chess games, Liem has gained 9 Elo points, peaking at fourth in Asia and close to his personal record of Elo rating (2,739).

Liem also moved to third of the tournament with 13 points, behind David Navara of the Czech Republic with 15.5 points and Vincent Keymer of Germany, who also has 13 points but with better stats.

The Biel Grandmaster is the first classical chess tournament that Liem has attended, since last year’s edition. He is the defending champion, and is the second seed at this year after Yu Yangyi of China with an Elo rating of 2,735.

The 2023 Biel Grandmaster takes place from July 16 to 26 in Switzerland, with eight players who have an average Elo rating of 2,699. Each win of classical chess will bring four points, rapid chess two points and blitz chess one.

In the next classical chess game, Liem will play the black pieces against Keymer on Thursday night. He will top the table if he beats Keymer and Navara loses to Jules Moussard.