Quang Liem leads the Biel Super League 2024

After eight months without playing competitive chess, Quang Liem returns to his usual tournament in Biel, where he has won two consecutive years (2022 and 2023). This time, he is only the second seed, behind world number eight Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. The tournament also features four other players, including Vincent Keymer, Shankland, Haik Martirosyan and the youngest grandmaster in history, Abhimanyu Mishra.

In the rapid chess event on July 14, Quang Liem lost to Keymer, won against Shankland, and drew with the other three players. In the standard chess event from July 16, the 33-year-old player consecutively won against Keymer, and drew with Praggnanandhaa and Mishra. Before the match with Shankland on July 19, Quang Liem was ranked second after Mishra.

Despite having to play black against Shankland in the fourth round of standard chess, the Vietnamese representative still took the initiative in the middle game, taking advantage of just one mistake of his opponent to turn it into a victory. Quang Liem earned 4 more points with this win, while Mishra only got 1.5 more points with the draw with Martirosyan. After the round, the number one Vietnamese player climbed to the top of the table with 16 points, one point more than Mishra. Number one seed Praggnanandhaa is only second to last, with 8 points.

After four standard chess games, Quang Liem earned 7.9 more Elo to 2,739, moving up one place to 16th in the world. Today, July 20, the players will play the final standard chess game, in which Quang Liem holds the white pieces and meets Martirosyan. If he wins, the Ho Chi Minh City player will reach the peak of his career with an Elo of 2,743, surpassing his previous personal record of 2,741. Quang Liem is also only one place behind Chess King Dinh Lap Nhan (Elo 2,745) on the world ranking.

The Biel Chess Festival has been held annually in Switzerland since 1968, with past champions such as Anatoly Karpov, Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen. The festival has many divisions based on the level of the players, the highest being the Grandmaster division. The average Elo of the six players in the Grandmaster division this year is 2,693, with three super grandmasters being Praggnanandhaa, Quang Liem and Keymer.

The grandmasters will play five rapid games and five standard games before 10 blitz games on July 21. The top four players after the blitz round will advance to the final round of standard chess to determine the champion. The prize money for this year's champion remains the same, $11,250.