The secret to helping Quang Liem win against Chinese players

Before winning the game against Yuyang Y (Yu Yangyi) on July 24 at Biel Grandmaster standard chess, Quang Liem had only once held a black piece to defeat a player who had been in the Top 10 in the world. That was the game he beat the former world number four Peter Leko at the Dortmund super tournament in September 2010.

Repeating this achievement after 13 years, Quang Liem smiled in the interview after the victory over Du. "Last year at the same tournament, I held white and lost to Gukesh Dommaraju in the same opening," he said. "From then on I thought that one day I would try to use Gukesh's opening. The whole game against Du was like a dream to me. I tried to turn the nightmare from losing to Gukesh, with the dream of winning against Du."

Gukesh is an Indian chess prodigy, currently ranked 11th in the world. Gukesh and Quang Liem once met at the HDBank international chess tournament, but now the 17-year-old player's level is far beyond his time playing in Vietnam. Quang Liem added that on the day off July 23, he spent time researching the opening that Gukesh chose. So he decided to use it right away in the game against Du.

Quang Liem refers to the b4 black statue, in the Carlsbad good structure of the Post-Reject Gambit (1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Bb4). Country 5...Bb4 is not new, but rarely used in top competition. The computer also rated this as the fourth best choice after Be7, c6 and Be6 countries. However, Quang Liem researched and realized that Bb4 is not bad for Black, even though the computer thinks that White now has a +0.5 advantage.

The second Chinese player seemed surprised by this move, so it took four minutes for the counter move (6. e3) and another 10 minutes for the next move. Meanwhile, Quang Liem seems to have memorized his "homework", going fast in the opening to create time advantage. The number one player in Vietnam thinks that the opponent should have accepted to change the position, bringing the game to the end soon, but it was easier to draw.

Du did not enter the city, nor did he change his position, maybe because he wanted to win. However, the 29-year-old player who went to the next moves was not good and Quang Liem immediately realized that. White's first big mistake according to Quang Liem, like the computer, was 18.Qb2, because Du didn't want to change his position. The representative of Vietnam said that Black's next moves are very logical, that is to push c4, enter far and focus on white's weak attack at e3.

Quang Liem thinks that White has no way to attack the citadel, because if he pushes a3 well to a4 and a5, Black will push b6 to b5 well and lock the rear wing. The white pawns of column a are isolated, and the white king is also in danger. At that time, the Vietnamese player realized that he had a great advantage. Not only that, he was almost half an hour more than his opponent thinking.

For the rest of the game, Quang Liem was sometimes dissatisfied with himself. "I'm sure Black has the upper hand, but with one mistake, the advantage can disappear," he said. "So I have to be precise to be able to win after the next few moves. But I'm embarrassed that I went 29...Qg3, because I only spent seven minutes thinking about this move. I should have spent more time calculating the best move 29...f5."

Quang Liem is angry with himself because White's next move is to push f4. At first, he didn't think carefully because he thought that Black could gain advantage after that move, but it was not easy to win. After regaining his composure, the 32-year-old thought he was winning so there was no reason to rush, so he withdrew the g7 defender on move 30, then returned to d6 on move 32. "I want to take the code to g3," he said.

Quang Liem gets the code to g3 on move 33, and then Black can create multiple combos. Du surrendered after three moves, because it was inevitable that he would lose his post or run out.

1. c4 e6 2. Nc3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Bg5 Bb4 6. e3 h6 7. Bh4 g5 8. Bg3 Ne4 9. a3 Bxc3+ 10. bxc3 h5 11. f3 Nxg3 12. hxg3 Qe7 13. Kf2 Q6 17. Ne2 c5 18. Qb2 c4 19. Bc2 O-O-O 20. Qb4 Qe6 21. Rae1 Rde8 22. Ng1 a5 23. Qb1 Kc7 24. e4 dxe4 25. Bxe4 h4 26. gxh4 gxh4 27. Qc1 Qd6 28. 32g1 Q5 NH3 30.K 33. Rh2 Ng3 34. Bf3 Qh6 35. Re1 Rxe1+ 36. Qxe1 Re8 0-1