Liem slip-up throws tournament open
With Vietnam's top-seeded
Grandmaster Le Quang Liem suffering his first defeat on Jan. 6, the
HDBank Open Cup chess tournament has been thrown wide open.
At the Rex Hotel in HCM City, Liem, the world No 79,
surprisingly lost to eighth-seeded Filipino GM Gomez John Paul in the
fifth round.
Paul now tops the table with five points.
He is followed by Chinese GM Yu Yangyi with 4.5 points and Vietnamese
GM Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, who is on four points after beating another
Chinese GM Zhou Weiqi on Jan. 6.
The loss has left
20-year-old Liem on 3.5 points. With just four more rounds to go, Liem
may have left himself with too much to do to win his first title of the
year.
Earlier, he had beaten Singapore 's Fernandez
Daniel Howard in the first round and China 's GM Lou Yiping in the
second round, drew with Bitoon Richard of the Philippines, and beat
compatriot Nguyen Duc Hoa in the fourth.
Also on 3.5
points are GMs Cao Sang and Tran Thanh Tu of Vietnam, Richard, GMs
Laylo Darwin and Salvador Roland and IMs Barbosa Oliver and Dimakiling
of the Philippines, GMs Wen Yang, Zhao Jun, and Wang Chen of China .
The week-long tournament has attracted 30 Vietnamese
players and 35 others from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and Ukraine.
It concludes on Jan. 9./.