Monday, July 19, 2010

Vietnamese 19 year old GM Le Quang Liem defeated Ex world champ Ponomariov.

One may thought that it came sooner than expected. But chess in the ASEAN region is surging. So when was the last time you've heard a chess player from the South East Asian region beats a former world champion in a classical game? Torre defeated Karpov and Tal decades ago and since then, if my memory serves me correctly, no player from this region ever beaten a current or former world champ in a classical game. Vietnam top grandmaster, 19 year old Liem Quang Le has just finally broke the barrier that boarders young Asian stars to the very elite of chess players. He defeated Ukranian ex FIDE world champion, Ruslan Ponomariov in round 4 of the Dortmund chess challenge that put Vietnam overnight in world chess map. In a report written by Daan Zult for ChessVibes.com:

Until move eleven of a Grünfeld Indian, both players were familiar with the position from the white perspective...With his victory Quang Le bounced back to a 50% score and brought new tension into the tournament standings. He also once again showed that Vietnam is a chess country to reckon with in the future. Kudos to Quang Le.

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