Quang Liem wins thanks to queen and car sacrifice at World Cup

Azerbaijan's Le Quang Liem used many coordinated moves to defeat Ivan Ivanisevic 2-0 in the tie-break, entering the third round of the 2023 Chess World Cup.

Quang Liem held the white pieces in the first tie-break, and gained a big advantage in the middlegame when he moved his knight to the strong square on f4. He stacked heavy pieces on the c-file, to move his rook to the seventh rank. On move 42, it seemed that Ivanisevic had trapped the white rook, but Vietnam's number one player sacrificed a piece to destroy his opponent's castle.

The following position is 42...Nc4. Ivanisevic uses his knight to block the c-file to capture the white rook on c7. Quang Liem does not hesitate to sacrifice his rook to the f7 pawn and this is also the only option for White to win. Quang Liem then captures the knight on c4 and despite the loss of quality, he still has a big advantage because the black king is weakened and the black pieces are all on the eighth rank.

Quang Liem won the game with an advantage, and moved his knight to an even stronger position on f6. The 32-year-old ended the game with a beautiful queen sacrifice, after 51 moves.

The chess position after 50...Qc8. Quang Liem decided to play queen c7 and Ivanisevic shook hands and immediately admitted defeat.

If Ivanisevic captures the white queen, the white knight will capture both the black queen and rook. At that time, Quang Liem will have a light piece and two pawns.

Ivanisevic had to win the next game with the white pieces, but the 46-year-old veteran continued to fail. With two quick games won in tie-breaks, Quang Liem passed the second round, becoming the only Vietnamese player to do so. Players of Vietnamese origin such as Nguyen Thai Dai Van and Hoang Thanh Trang also had to stop in the second round.

Quang Liem (standard chess Elo 2,740) will meet Ruslan Ponomariov (2,664) or Dmitrij Kollars (2,618) in round three. The first game of round three will take place at 6pm on August 5.

Le Quang Liem at the Grand Chess Tour super tournament in St Louis, Missouri, USA in August 2021. Photo: GCT

Also in the second round tie-break, the masters such as Hikaru Nakamura, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri and Wesley So all won quickly and entered the third round. Previously, the number one players Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Ian Nepomniachtchi did not need a tie-break to enter the third round. Meanwhile, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov were eliminated.

The Chess World Cup is held every two years and is the largest individual tournament. This year's tournament took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from July 30 to August 24, with 206 players in the Open division and 103 players in the Women's division. The players competed in a knockout match, with the top three players from each group qualifying for the Candidates. Each round lasted three days, with two standard games played on the first two days and a rapid tie-break on the third day if necessary. The tournament gathered most of the masters, but was missing the reigning world champions Ding Liren and Alireza Firouzja.

Xuan Binh

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