Vietnam's top chess player Le Quang Liem won his first match at the Spice Cup in the US on Oct. 16.

Grandmaster Liem, who has an Elo rating of 2,717, defeated American Yury Shulman, Elo 2608, after 41 moves.

The two-time Aeroflot champion will meet Georg Meier of Germany in his next match.

The six grand masters invited to the tournament were Liem, Lienier Dominguez of Cuba, Sebastien Feller of France, Meier, Shulman and Ray Robson from the US .

After the Spice Cup, Liem is going to join the Vietnamese team for the 26th Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia in November. In December he will also take part in the SportAccord Mind Games in China . /.