Le Quang Liem wins Asian Continental Championship

by Johannes Fischer
6/17/2019 – With 7.0/9 Vietnamese Grandmaster Le Quang Liem was sole winner of the Asian Continental Championships in Xingtai, China, five players qualified for the World Cup 2019, Dinara Saduakossava won the women's event with 7½/9, Nihal Sarin finished first in the blitz tournament, and a number of interesting games were played. | Photos: Chinese Chess Federation

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Le Quang Liem with strong finish

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:

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 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".