Despite a spectacular loss against Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria in the
penultimate round yesterday evening, Feb 16,
Vietnamese Grandmaster (GM) Le Quang Liem won the Russian International Chess
Festival Aeroflot Open in Moscow for the second
time in a row.

Later yesterday
evening, HCM City-born Liem came back strongly with a solid draw against Rauf
Mamedov of Azerbaijan in the final round.

The Vietnamese GM was
among 130 candidates with highest FIDE ratings competing in the A tournament for
a prize of 20,000 euros (US$29,300). Liem finished with 6.5 points following
four wins, three draws and one loss.

GMs Nikita Vitiugov
and Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia finished runners-up after winning their final
matches against Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria and Sanan Sjugirov of Russia,
respectively.

The victory means
world No 79 Liem qualifies for the Super Tournament in Dortmund later this
summer, where he finished second last year behind Ruslan Ponomariov.

The B tournament was
won by GM Tigran Kotanjian from Armenia, who edged out GM Darwin Laylo of the
Philippines and GM Nikolai Kabanov of Russia on a tiebreak. Armenia experienced
more success in the C tournament with David Shahinyan and Tigran Simonian making
it a one-two for the Balkans nation.

Liem also won the 4th
Kolkata Open Grandmaster Tournament in 2009, the Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Open,
and finished equal third in the 8th Asian Continental Individual Open
Championship.

In February last year,
Liem tied for first in the Aeroflot Open with Konstantin Chernyshov, Evegny
Bareev and Ernesto Inarkiev.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News