By Kevin Truong ’22
Le Quang Liem beats Magnus Carlsenfor the first time! Huge queen blunder from the world chess player.
The headline match of the first of Champion Chess Tour 2022 took place last week at the Oslo E-Sport Cup. Super Grandmaster, Le Quang Liem, pulled off an incredible feat after a shocking loss in a match on the opening day against the 9th ranked player in the world Shakhriyar Mamedyao. Le Quang Liem rallied to defeat the world chess Number 1, Magnus Carlsen, in his second match.
In the previous 15 games, the number one chess player in Vietnam only received draws and losses against Carlsen. The rematch, this time, on the Champions Tour, had Vietnamese fans ecstatic with early victory results against Carlsen in the first game.
With Carlsen holding the white, the game seemingly fell in his command; but the first moves proved otherwise and the game proceeded to be quite balanced. In the 39th move, the chess king had a disastrous technological blunder where his mouse slipped and he made the wrong move. He lost the queen and had to accept defeat to Quang Liem after 40 moves.
In the second game, high concentration allowed Carlsen and Quang Liem to maintain an extremely tense match after 50 moves. This match ended in a nail-biting draw.
Chess king Magnus Carlsen regained the balance of points when he won the 3rd game after 34 moves.
The fourth game and deciding game culminated in a brain-tearing showdown through 42 moves. The Vietnamese Super Grandmaster won a breathtaking victory. With an overall score of 2.5, 1.5 in favor of Le Quang Liem, he did the unbelievable in the world of chess, and defeated Magnus Carlsen for the first time in history.
With the special mark of Quang Lỉem, coach Lam Minh Chau of the national chess team, said that Quang Liem had a historic match against the best. Lam Minh Chau said: “In my opinion, in the past, the gameplay of Quang Liem was similar to Carlsen. It is more strategic, prioritizing certainty. However, recently Quang Liem changed the gameplay with a more diverse move. He is ready for every battle to produce significant results, as evidenced by consistently having good results in this tournament, not just this month’s match. With his current performance, I believe Quang Liem can have a better win-rates over time. About Carlsen, I still think Quang Liem will be a bit difficult if the two continue to see each other in the future.”
The chess king seemed somewhat embarrassed. Not long before this painful loss, he stated that “he was a bit tired of chess because he never knew what losing was.” But in front of the Vietnamese wiz, Carlsen had to pay homage to his words.
