Indian player becomes super grandmaster at the age of 16
Quang Liem holds the white pawn but was at a disadvantage from the start. He weakens the fine structure of Wang Wing, doesn't get into City and tries to complicate the game. There was a double attack between the two sides, when Vietnam's top-ranked player did a good job pushing up the F-pillar, while Gukesh focused on attacking the White King. Eventually, Gukesh sent troops sooner to threaten to show them all, when whites could not be given ranks. Quang Liem asked to lose in the 49th country because he understood he would be shown in the next three.
The win helped Gukesh earn an extra 5.5 elos, taking the number of elos he earned in July 2022 to 19.9. The Indian's current Elo has reached 2,704, making him a super grandmaster at 16 years, 1 month and 17 days.
Gukesh became the third young player in history to break the 2,700 elo mark, second only to Wei Yi (micro translation) at 15 years, 7 months and 27 days, and Arireza Firouzja at 16 years, 1 month and 10 days. Gukesh became a super grandmaster before chess king Magnus Carlson, who broke the 2,700 mark at the age of 16 and more than seven months. The achievement was even more impressive when he spent a long time out of the game because of Covid-19.
Gukesh also holds the record of the third youngest grandmaster in history, at 12 years, 7 months and 17 days. The record is held by Abhimanyu Mishra, 12 years, 4 months and 25 days.
Quang Liem lost 5.5 Elo, causing his instant Elo to drop to 2,715. This was the 31-year-old's second consecutive defeat in charge of the white, in the standard flag. He has four more games to play to find a way to recover the lost Elo.
Quang Liem also lost the top of Biel Grandmaster to Gukesh himself. The 16-year-old added 16.5 points, while Quang Liem finished second with 15. Andrey Esipenko and Arkadij Naiditsch followed with 14.5 and 13 points respectively.
On the matchday on Sunday, July 17, players will only play Blitzkrieg, playing 14 matches in a round robin format. The winner of a blitzkrieg gets 1 point, draws 0.5 points and loses 1 point.
Super Grandmaster is an unofficial title, but is widely recognized by Chess Village as a player of Elo 2,700 or higher. Gukesh is the sixth Indian player to reach this milestone, while Vietnam only has Guanglian as a super grandmaster.
