Vietnam GM continues Swiss chess tour conquest

By Xuan Binh July 21, 2022 | 02:28 am PT

Le Quang Liem during a match with Salem Saleh at the Biel Grandmaster in Switzerland on July 20, 2022. Photo by Biel Grandmaster

Le Quang Liem defeated top United Arab Emirates chess player and Asian champion Salem Saleh in the standard event of Biel Grandmaster on Wednesday.

It was another long game for Liem who beat Saleh after nearly seven hours. The game was balanced and heading for a draw, with Liem seeking to win despite playing black. He took a risk attacking his opponent in the endgame, with both players making consecutive mistakes before Liem capitalized to achieve victory.

This is the second game that took Liem nearly seven hours to win. On Tuesday, he took down top German player Vincent Keymer.

With this win, Liem tops Biel Grandmaster with 30 points, two more than second-placed Gukesh Dommaraju of India. His Elo rating also increased to 2,724.

In the sixth round of Prague Master in Czech Republic on June 14, Saleh, who won the 2015 Asian Chess Championship also lost to Liem.

Liem will play the next game with Azerbaijani GM Arkadij Naiditsh on Thursday, then the final game on Friday with his direct competition for the title, Russian GM Andrey Esipenko.