Liem's tournament began with a loss to 28-year-old Grigoriy Oparin, a Russian-American player and student at the University of Missouri, a rival of Webster University where Liem works as a full-time coach.

Le Quang Liem during his match against Gukesh in round three of the rapid chess tournament, St. Louis Grand Chess Tour in Missouri, USA, 11/8/2025. Photo: GCT

In the second round, despite playing black again, Liem defeated former US champion Sam Shankland in the Berlin Defense. An interesting moment in the middlegame saw Liem bring his king into the fray, maneuvering it across squares f8-g8-h7-g6 and then to f5. This allowed him to capture Shankland's pawn and ultimately win the endgame.

The highlight of Liem's first day was his third-round match against 19-year-old world classical chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju. This was the 34-year-old Liem's first encounter with Gukesh since the Indian prodigy became world champion.

The match saw a complex middlegame requiring careful calculation. Known for his deep calculation skills, Gukesh leveraged this strength, capturing one of Liem's pawns after a series of exchanges. Liem attempted a counterattack, but it was unsuccessful. Gukesh advanced his queen and rook to the second rank, putting pressure on Liem's king. The match concluded with a beautiful checkmate by the 19-year-old.

The position after move 42.Qf1. Gukesh, playing black, decides to sacrifice his queen by capturing the bishop on g2 with his rook.

If the white queen captures the rook on g2, Gukesh will move his other rook to d2, capturing the white queen. Therefore, Liem resigned.

After the first day, only Levon Aronian had a perfect score of 6 points, with victories over Gukesh, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov. Fabiano Caruana was second with 5 points, having defeated Abdusattorov and Leinier Dominguez, and drawn with Vachier-Lagrave. Gukesh and Wesley So were tied for third with 4 points each.

Liem and Oparin shared seventh place with 2 points. Abdusattorov was second to last with 1 point, while Shankland lost all three of his matches.

The second day of competition begins at 0:10 Wednesday, 13/8, Hanoi time. Liem is scheduled to face Vachier-Lagrave, Abdusattorov, and Dominguez.

The Grand Chess Tour is a series of elite chess tournaments held worldwide, consisting of six events annually. The St. Louis Rapid and Blitz is the fourth event this year, featuring a prize fund of 175,000 USD for the 10 participating players. Each player competes in 9 rapid and 18 blitz games over 5 days. In rapid games, a win earns 2 points, a draw 1 point, and a loss 0 points.

Xuan Binh