Liem wins Aeroflot

Despite a spectacular loss against Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria in the penultimate round on Wednesday, Vietnamese Grandmaster Le Quang Liem won the Russian International Chess Festival Aeroflot Open in Moscow for the second time in a row.

HCM City-born Liem, 20, came back strongly with a solid draw against Rauf Mamedov of Azerbaijan in the final round. The Vietnamese GM was among 130 candidates with highest FIDE ratings competing in the tournament for a prize of 20,000 euros (USD 29,300). Liem finished with 6.5 points following four wins, three draws and one loss. Liem also won the 4th Kolkata Open Grandmaster Tournament in 2009, the Zhejiang Lishui Xingqiu Open, and finished equal third in the 8th Asian Continental Individual Open Championship. In February last year, Liem tied for first in the Aeroflot Open with Konstantin Chernyshov, Evegny Bareev and Ernesto Inarkiev. GMs Nikita Vitiugov and Evgeny Tomashevsky of Russia finished runners-up after winning their final matches against Ivan Cheparinov of Bulgaria and Sanan Sjugirov of Russia, respectively. The victory means world No 79 Liem qualifies for the Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund, Germany, this summer, where he finished second last year behind Ruslan Ponomariov.

Group B was won by GM Tigran Kotanjian from Armenia, who edged out GM Darwin Laylo of the Philippines and GM Nikolai Kabanov of Russia on a tiebreak. Armenia experienced more success in the Group C with David Shahinyan and Tigran Simonian making it a one-two for the Balkans nation.