Grandmaster threw a water bottle when losing to Quang Liem

Quang Liem held a black piece to meet Chigaev on the morning of March 14, Hanoi time, in the armageddon game to decide to compete for the highest place in the main round of Chessable Masters - the tournament of the online fast chess system Champions Chess Tour - with chess King Magnus Carlsen or Hikaru Nakamura. The Russian player has 10 minutes and must win, while Quang Liem has eight minutes but only needs to draw.

Chigaev had a big advantage in the mid game according to the computer, but made a mistake on move 30.Kh1 and fell into a losing position. Quang Liem immediately realized that the only move to win was 30...Qh6. The two commentators, both Grandmasters, Daniel Naroditsky and Robert Hess, also saw the country right away. "Quang Liem was looking for tactical attacks throughout the game," Hess said. "He turned the game around too quickly. There were times when White got the upper hand according to the computer, but Black's attack was too annoying for a human to resist.

After the Vietnamese player went to this country, Chigaev shook his head as if he had realized his mistake. "The attack is very prestigious from Quang Liem," Narodítky added. "The irony is that White's time is now lower than that of Black. Chigaev may have realized that being screened out was inevitable."

Quang Liem did not give the opponent the opportunity to correct his mistakes, when he gathered his troops to attack the citadel and threatened to destroy it. During the attack, Black is still the runner-up in move 36...Qxf4. "Awesome move," said Naroditsky. And Hess added: "Quang Liem's ​​determination is unstoppable. From the beginning of the game he was always calm, as if accepting every possible situation."

Chigaev would like to lose in move 40, because in the next move Quang Liem will be more than a car. The Russian player must play in second place, while the Vietnamese representative is ranked first. Chigaev responded by throwing the water bottle on the table. "Chigaev can't be blamed," Naroditsky said. "He was very close to victory. It is undeniable that White has a great advantage, but Chigaev should not blame himself because in that position, White was forced to make perfect moves continuously. Although slightly better in terms of time. It's also a difficult task."

The 27-year-old Russian Chigaev is ranked 118th in the world with a standard chess Elo of 2,632, while Quang Liem is at 22nd with an Elo of 2,728.

Chessable Masters qualifying includes 147 players, most of which are Grandmasters, the Swiss system nine quick games to calculate points to rank. Quang Liem leads with 7.5 points, including a game against the world's number four player Alireza Firouzja. The top 8 players entered a duel to choose the four places to advance to the first place against the players who entered directly including Carlsen, Nakamura, Wesley So and Fabiano Caruana. The four winners from the qualifying round are Quang Liem, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Fedoseev and Vladislav Artemiev.

In addition to Quang Liem, Vietnam has two players participating in the qualifying round, Le Tuan Minh and Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, and both performed well. Tuan Minh scored six points in the first round, then beat Matthias Bluebaum in a duel to qualify for second place. And Truong Son got 4.5 points, then beat female Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk to take third place. This is Truong Son's first time participating in the main round of a Champions Chess Tour tournament.

The main round of Chessable Masters takes place from April 3, with three classes, first place eight players, second place 16 and third place 32. The prize fund of the tournament is 235,000 USD, of which 112,500 USD for the first place, 71,500 USD for the first place. second place and 51,000 for third place. Winners in these three categories receive 30,000, 10,000 and 5,000 USD respectively. Due to being placed in first place, Quang Liem guaranteed a bonus of at least 7,500 USD.

Chessable Masters is the second prize of the Champions Chess Tour 2023 system - with a prize fund of 2 million USD. At the first Airthings Masters tournament, Quang Liem and Tuan Minh both finished in third place due to their poor performance in the qualifying round.