Top-ranked Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem won the Grandmaster Triathlon title at the Biel International Chess Festival in Switzerland after holding direct rival Andrey Esipenko to a draw in the last round on July 22.

Vietnamese grandmaster Le Quang Liem (R) in a match of Biel International Chess Festival (Photo: thanhnien.vn)

The Grandmaster Triathlon was the centrepiece of the festival. The eight-player tournament combined three different time formats (blitz, rapid and classic), counting towards the final score.

Le Quang Liem was convincing throughout the tournament, proving to be the strongest player in classical and rapid chess while maintaining his high level in blitz.

He won a total of 35.5 points out of the maximum 56 points across the three categories, three points ahead of runner-up Andrey Esipenko (Russian) and six points clear of third-placed Dommaraju Gukesh (India).

In particular, the Vietnamese grandmaster performed brilliantly in the classic segment, winning four games, drawing one and losing two, achieving a performance efficiency of a player with an Elo rating of 2780.

Thanks to the Biel triumph, Le Quang Liem earned an additional 5.7 Elo points to reach 2728 and resume his career-best world ranking of 21st.

This is the first individual title for Quang Liem since he bagged a hat-trick of titles at the Asian tournament, the Summer Chess Classic and the World Open in 2019.

Source: VNA