Le Quang Liem wins Asian Continental Championship

Le Quang Liem won the event thanks to a last-round victory against the Indian S. P. Sethuraman. After eight rounds Sethuraman led the field with 6½/8 and was half a point ahead of Le, but in the last round the Vietnamese had White against Indian and demonstrated the potential of positions with opposite-coloured bishops.

In round 8 Le had won against Alireza Firouzja but maybe it was Le's crazy round seven draw against current Junior World Champion Parham Maghsoodloo that gave Le the momentum to finish the tournament with two wins.

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The Asian Continental Championships was also a qualifying tournament for the World Cup 2019 in September in Khanty-Mansiysk. According to the rules the first five players qualified for the World Cup but as Le Quang Liem and Rinat Jumabayev had already secured their ticket for Khanty-Mansiysk the qualification slots went to Firouzja and Abijheet Gupta.

Final standings after 9 rounds

Rg.	Snr		Name	Country	Elo	Pts.
1	2	GM	Le Quang Liem	VIE	2694	7,0
2	16	GM	Karthikeyan Murali	IND	2593	6,5
3	9	GM	Sethuraman S.P.	IND	2613	6,5
4	12	GM	Narayanan.S.L	IND	2603	6,5
5	7	GM	Jumabayev Rinat	KAZ	2625	6,5
6	3	GM	Firouzja Alireza	IRI	2682	6,0
7	10	GM	Gupta Abhijeet	IND	2606	6,0
8	1	GM	Vidit Santosh Gujrathi	IND	2707	6,0
9	8	GM	Lu Shanglei	CHN	2624	6,0
10	19	GM	Lalith Babu M R	IND	2571	6,0
11	11	GM	Nihal Sarin	IND	2606	6,0
12	41	IM	Vignesh N R	IND	2459	5,5
13	14	GM	Aravindh Chithambaram Vr.	IND	2598	5,5
14	6	GM	Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son	VIE	2639	5,5
15	27	GM	Erigaisi Arjun	IND	2526	5,5
16	4	GM	Adhiban B.	IND	2676	5,5
17	30	GM	Chanda Sandipan	IND	2511	5,5
18	38	IM	Dai Changren	CHN	2480	5,5
19	21	GM	Sengupta Deep	IND	2559	5,5

... 74 participants

Games

Women's Tournament

Top seed in the women's tournament was Dinara Saduakassova from Kazakhstan, and the 22-year old indeed won the tournament with 7½/9, half a point ahead of Irine Sukandar from Indonesia.

Dinara Saduakassova | Photo: Chinese Chess Federation

Final standings after 9 rounds

Rg.	Snr		Name	Country	Elo	Pts.
1	1	IM	Saduakassova Dinara	KAZ	2458	7,5
2	4	IM	Sukandar Irine Kharisma	INA	2378	7,0
3	5	WFM	Munkhzul Turmunkh	MGL	2371	6,0
4	7	IM	Pham Le Thao Nguyen	VIE	2370	6,0
5	9	WGM	Vaishali R	IND	2338	6,0
6	12		Li Xueyi	CHN	2305	5,5
7	3	WGM	Kulkarni Bhakti	IND	2380	5,5
8	15	WGM	Kurbonboeva Sarvinoz	UZB	2259	5,5
9	2	IM	Munguntuul Batkhuyag	MGL	2420	5,5
10	13	WGM	Hoang Thi Bao Tram	VIE	2293	5,5
11	10	WGM	Vo Thi Kim Phung	VIE	2337	5,0
12	20		Zhang Xiao	CHN	2234	5,0
13	26	WGM	Frayna Janelle Mae	PHI	2157	5,0
14	25	WIM	Pham Bich Ngoc	VIE	2167	5,0
15	18	WIM	Mahalakshmi M	IND	2245	4,5
16	8	WGM	Zhai Mo	CHN	2358	4,5
17	16		Ren Xiaoyi	CHN	2255	4,5
18	14	WFM	Li Yunshan	CHN	2264	4,5
19	6	IM	Karavade Eesha	IND	2370	4,5
20	23	WIM	Gu Tianlu	CHN	2183	4,5
21	11	WGM	Gomes Mary Ann	IND	2314	4,5
22	32	WFM	Tan Li Ting	MAS	2066	4,5

... 36 participants

Games

Blitz

In the open tournament the 14-year old Indian Grandmaster Nihal Sarin finished eleventh but he smoothly won the open blitz tournament with 8/9 as he laconically stated on twitter:

Won 2019 Asian Blitz Championship comfortably with 8/9.
— Nihal Sarin (@NihalSarin) June 15, 2019

Le Quang Liem finished second in blitz while Chinese Women Grandmaster Zhai Mo won the women's blitz tournament.

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Johannes Fischer Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".