Vietnamese GM in quarterfinals of online tournament

After playing 15 games of rapid chess from July 31 to August 3, Liem won four, drew 10 and lost one. Notable among his victories were the matches against world number eight Shakhriyar Mamedyarov of Azerbaijan and the youngest GM in history, American Abhimanyu Mishra.

Overall, Liem garnered nine points from 15 games, equal to Mamedyarov, but placed above him owing to better stats. Liem will face Iranian grandmaster Alireza Firouzja in the quarterfinal.

The quarterfinal will take place on August 4 and 5. On each day, the players will play four rapid chess matches. If the result is a draw after two days, they will enter a tiebreaker blitz chess match to decide the winner. Players will have 15 minutes per game plus a 10-second increment per move.

Chessable Masters, held July 31-August 8, is the eighth tournament of the prestigious Champion Chess Tour series - a 10-month long series of 10 online chess tournaments featuring top world players, with a prize pool of $1.5 million. All games are held on chess24.com and broadcast on streaming site Twitch. The series runs from November 22, 2020 to October 3, 2021.

Liem has played in the first and fifth series, but failed to reach the finals of both.

The prize pool for the ongoing Chessable Masters is $100,000, with the winner taking $30,000.