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Due to the withdrawal of reigning world champion Dinh Lap Nhan, Vietnam's number one player Le Quang Liem was invited to replace him at the St Louis rapid chess tournament.
This is the first and only tournament Quang Liem will participate in the Grand Chess Tour 2023 system. The tournament takes place from November 14 to November 18.
The last time Quang Liem was invited to this tournament series was in St Louis in 2021, where the Vietnamese player finished last in rapid chess and second in blitz. In the end, he won 17.5 points and ranked fifth out of 10 participating players.
Le Quang Liem at the Superbet blitz tournament of the Grand Chess Tour in Bucharest, Romania in November 2019
At St Louis 2023, Quang Liem is the eighth seed in rapid chess and ninth in blitz, even though the Elo of these two formats fluctuates twice as fast as standard chess. He will compete against Fabiano Caruana, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Alireza Firouzja, Anish Giri, Wesley So, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jeffery Xiong, Ray Robson and Samuel Sevian. These players are all current or former Super Grandmasters - Elo 2,700 or higher.
Ding Liren was originally scheduled to play instead of Quang Liem, but the Chinese player has recently withdrawn from several major tournaments. After becoming the World Chess Champion by defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in the April 2023 World Finals, Ding only played one more tournament in May, and has been absent since. Ding said he will not play any more tournaments this year, but will return to the Tata Steel Super Tournament in January 2024.
Quang Liem is currently residing in Missouri, convenient for traveling to the competition venue. He is currently the chess coach at Webster University in this state, and also the Director of SPICE Academy.
The Grand Chess Tour is a supertournament that invites the world's top players, with five stages each year, including three blitz tournaments and two standard tournaments. This year, three tournaments were held, with Caruana winning the standard tournament, and Carlsen topping both of the blitz tournaments played.
Quang Liem has participated in three Grand Chess Tour tournaments, all in the rapid and blitz format in 2017, 2019 and 2021. In 2021, he was invited to participate in the Sinquefield Cup, but declined due to scheduling conflicts. This year, Dinh was replaced by Levon Aronian at the Sinquefield Cup.
According to VnExpress