Lê Quang Liêm first in Aeroflot 2011!, for the second consecutive time Options

[pdrive]

Anyone plays chess here?

First, some background information: Aeroflot is considered one of the strongest open tournaments in the world, if not the strongest. (An open championship is one where anyone satisfying certain criteria can enter. The rest are all by invitation only, meaning you participate only if the organizer invites you.) There are three tournaments: A, B and C. Participant in the A tournament must have Elo >= 2550.
The field this year in A tournament this year includes Gata Kamsky (ex world champ contender), Rustam Kashimzanov (ex FIDE KO champ, Asian Games gold medalist), Alexander Khalifman (ex FIDE KO champ), Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (top French player), and many other GMs (it's worth noting that the strength of the field means even Dao Thien Hai & Tu Hoang Thong would not have qualified to play).

The winner of the A tournament each year is invited to Dortmund, which is one of the super-GM level tournaments. Its participants has traditionally included only the world's top players, for example Anand, Kramnik & Kasparov.

Last year Le Quang Liêm won clear first at Aeroflot, the first Asian player to do so. He subsequently participated in Dortmund and finished 2nd, behind Ponomariov but above Kramnik. (Can't remember how much he got for that result ... Euro 50K?)

This year I didn't think he could repeat, especially after having some up and down (bad result at Olympiad, silver medal at Asian games, bad result again at an open tournament just before this). But he surprised everyone by starting very strong, scoring 6/7 (5 wins, 2 draws) in his first 7 games.

I had wanted to write a post about it 2 days ago, but I was afraid something might go wrong. And it did go wrong: in his 8th rounds he had his first loss to one of the nearest rival. I thought his chances are gone.

Luckily that opponent lost in the 9th (and last) round earlier today. Lê Quang Liêm drew and got to be equal first this year. It's not as good as last year (last year he was sole first). This year I'm not sure what the tie-breaking criteria are, although right now the website puts his name first. Nevertheless the fact he can be on top again the next year at such tournament is very impressive.

It'll be really great if he gets to play in Dortmund again. Thanks to some good results last year, he has been invited to some good tournaments last year (meaning better training, better opponent, better income). I hope he'll get invited more this year.

Also, a shout-out to those who follows Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son. He didn't have as good result as Lê Quang Liêm last year, but still good nevertheless (top 3 at Moscow/equal first at Biel). More notably, his girlfriend (Phạm Lê Thảo Nguyên) did awesome at all the tournaments she plays (including the Olympiad where she got a bronze medal). I can only assume love spurs her along and will hope love can do the same thing for him too.

[daxas24]

Been following him since he was 9 or something.
When he was younger, Truong Son always got more hype than him but at some point Truong Son reached his plateau and this kid kept improving.

[pdrive]

It's hard to say it's a plateau though. Although lower than Liêm, his Elo is not going down. Last year he also shared equal first at Biel where many young players of his generation played: Caruana, Maxime VL, Wesley So.
His family situation is also a lot tougher than Liêm. Liêm's family is a lot better off and supportive of him. That's why I was happy to know he had a girlfriend, and was positively surprised to see her playing so well at the Olympiad. I really hope they can get the support from each other to improve even more.

[pdrive]

We have confirmation that Liêm is indeed first in tiebreak, and he will play Dortmund again!

From http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/le-quang...roflot-victory/

In the last round Le Quang Liem played a solid draw with the black pieces against Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan, and so he was the first to reach 6.5 points. Nikita Vitiugov and Evgeny Tomashevsky won their last round encounters, against Cheparinov and Sjugirov respectively, to catch Le in the standings.

The first tie-break rule was the number of games played with Black, and so Tomashevsky fell off as the Russian had played the white pieces five times. The second tie-break rule was the average of the opponents’ ratings minus the highest and the lowest rating, and this decided that Le Quang Liem was again the winner in Moscow. And so we’ll see him back in Dortmund this summer, where he did so well last year, finishing clear second, behind Ruslan Ponomariov.

[XigonCongchua]

Is he from Vietnam or from oversea?

[pdrive]

He's from Vietnam of course. Lê Quang Liêm is from Saigon, Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn is from Kiên Giang I think (do they still call Kiên Giang or Hà Tiên now?). Their family are there and they go back there when not playing/training.

They do have training stint overseas though. For a while they were in Hungary, although I'm not sure about right now. There was a time Liêm trained with Evgeni Bareev and Alexander Khalifman (both Russian players).

[pdrive]

Since people like photos I'll add some photos for the benefits of any single girl out there (he's turning 20 sometimes in 2011)

last game in Dortmund 2010 (they drew)


Too happy with the victory but don't know what to say:

[bobcat]

It's hard to say it's a plateau though. Although lower than Liêm, his Elo is not going down. Last year he also shared equal first at Biel where many young players of his generation played: Caruana, Maxime VL, Wesley So.
His family situation is also a lot tougher than Liêm. Liêm's family is a lot better off and supportive of him. That's why I was happy to know he had a girlfriend, and was positively surprised to see her playing so well at the Olympiad. I really hope they can get the support from each other to improve even more.

Son's family situation is much tougher than Liem which negatively affects his focus on his career. Here's an interview with Son telling about his own family situation and difficulties.

http://nld.com.vn/2010032708502806P0C1026/...-vai-de-tua.htm

[pdrive]

There is a new interview out with Liêm: http://vnexpress.net/gl/the-thao/2011/02/k...nhan-thanh-dat/

In it he talks about his desire to become no. 1, but more importantly, about being invited and his plan to play for some foreign chess clubs. I believe he would be the first Vietnamese to do so (Hoàng Thanh Trang may have but we don't know for sure, plus she's playing for Hungary now anyway). Playing in clubs is the way professional players earn their living while honing their skills.

I'm not sure what's happening to Sơn now. Last year he actually got equal 3rd at Aeroflot (if he didn't lose in the last round he'll be 1-2 with Liêm). But this year he's not even playing. He's also not invited as much as, say, Wesley So and his money situation will probably be tight as well. It'll be a shame if his talent dies out for whatever reason.