Vietnamese chess player cracks world's top 15

Le Quang Liem with his Biel Grandmaster gold medal in Switzerland on July 27, 2023. Photo by Biel Grandmaster

The 12 Elo points he gained by winning the Biel Grandmaster last month increased his rating to 2,740 points and world ranking from 21st to 15th.

He would have been 16th with this Elo rating, but Azerbaijan's Teimour Radjabov (Elo 2,747) was dropped from the ranking list because he has not played a standard chess game in the past 12 months.

The Vietnamese chess ace is 12 points behind world number 10 Richard Rapport and 95 behind world number one Magnus Carlsen.

Liem has the opportunity to further improve his rating at the 2023 Chess World Cup taking place in Baku, Azerbaijan. He begins with a match against Serbia’s Ivan Ivanisevic (Elo 2,530) at 6 p.m. (Hanoi time) on Wednesday.

Three other Vietnamese players, Le Tuan Minh (2,559), Vo Thi Kim Phung (2,351) and Nguyen Thi Mai Hung (2,229) were also in the fray until Hung was eliminated in the first round.

The biannual world cup is the most important individual tournament in the chess calendar, and the top three finishers will qualify for the 2024 Candidates to challenge the defending world champion.

The world cup is being played from July 30 to August 24 with 206 men and 103 women taking part.

Top seeds like Carlsen, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana, and Ian Nepomniachtchi did not have to play in the first round and got byes into the knockout stage.