Hanoi (VNA) - Le Quang Liem, Vietnam’s top chess player, will compete in theseventh HDBank Cup International Open Chess tournament 2017, the event’sorganising board has announced.
Theevent, which will offer a biggest-ever bonus of 45,000 USD, will take place onMarch 12-17 in HCM City with the participation of 230 players from 24 countriesand territories. They will be divided into two groups: Masters and Challenge.
“Wedecided to raise the prize money to encourage chess players to compete better,”said Le Thanh Trung, vice general director of HDBank.
“Besides,the organizing board will give awards for runners-up in order to matches willbe more interesting. The tournament will be managed by international referees,”Trung added.
Liem, whowon a silver medal at the Asian Chess Championships in 2016, is the biggesthope of Vietnam in this year’s event. He won the tournament in 2013 and 2015.
The25-year-old Liem, with an Elo rating of 2712, is No 2 seed at the event. Hewill battle against top seed Wei Yi of China (Elo 2725) for the title.(The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skilllevels of players in competitor-versus-competitor games).
BesidesYi, Liem will have to try his best to beat other strong rivals including BuXiangzhi (Elo 2711), Ivan Cheparinov (Elo 2698) and defending champion Wang Hao(Elo 2683).
Vietnameserepresentative Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son (Elo 2629) is also expected to make astrong showing for Vietnam chess. Son won this event in 2014, although hewasn’t the top seed.
The26-year-old Son grabbed a silver medal at the Zone 3.3 Chess Championships2017, which closed in the Philippines on March 5 and earned a ticket to competein the World Cup to be organised in September in Georgia.
“We arevery glad that besides male chess players at high level, the tournament alsoattracts leading female players such as Lei Tingjie of China and four-timeworld champion Dinara Saduakassova of Kazakhstan. They are candidates for thewomen’s title, however Vietnamese players such as Pham Le Thao Nguyen, Vo Thi Kim Phung and Nguyen Thi Mai Hung absolutely make a shock as Nguyen took thetitle last year,” said Dang Tat Thang, deputy chairman of the Vietnam ChessFederation. — VNA
VNA