Vietnam’s No 1 chess player Le Quang Liem (Photo: soha.vn)

The HCM City-born player (Elo 2708) defeated Anton Korobov of the Ukraine (Elo 2679) after 79 moves in the second leg.

Earlier, Liem tied with Korobov in the first leg. Liem beat Korobov 1.5-0.5 to reach the third round.

Earlier, former world blitz champion Liem beat Aleksandrov Aleksej of Belarus.

As one of 32 competitors in the third round, Liem will earn a 16,000 USD bonus. He will next play defending European champion Vladislav Artemiev of Russia, who has an Elo rating of 2757.

The Chess World Cup 2019 is a 128-player single-elimination chess tournament held from September 9 to October 4, 2019. The finalists of the tournament will qualify for the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2020.

The matches from round one to round six consist of two classical games with time control of 90 minutes per 40 moves plus 30 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move. The finals and the match for the third place consist of four classical games.

The total prize fund is 1,600,000 USD, with the winner taking away 110,000 USD./.