VietNamNet Bridge – According to the latest FIDE ratings, Vietnam’s top chess player Le Quang Liem is not in the top 50, while Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son gets out of top 100.

With Elo rating of 2693 compared to 2703 in May 2012, Le Quang Liem fell from 43rd to 51st in FIDE rating list. This is Liem’s lowest position since January 2011. At that time, he ranked 79th with the Elo rating of 2664. Since early 2012, Liem has dropped continuously after he ranked 29th in January 2012.

Liem’s downgrade is the result of his unsuccessful performance at the Asia Chess Championships 2012, which was organized in Vietnam in May. At this competition, Liem was the first seed but he scored only 5.5 points after nine games, ranking 16th.

At his latest international competition – the 2012 World Rapid and Blitz Championships which came to a close in Astana, Kazakhstan on July 10, Liem finished in seventh place in the blitz category.

Liem earned a total of 16.5 points after 30 games of the blitz finals to claim the seventh position, winning a cash prize of US$12,000 and tacking on 26.6 points to his Elo rating in the FIDE standings.

After the tournament, Liem will join six other grandmasters, including Vasily Ivanchuk (Ukraine), Gata Kamsky (USA), Baadur Jobava (Georgia), Krisnan Sasikiran (India, Anna Muzychuk (Slovenia) and Emil Sutovsky (Israel), at the ACP Golden Chess Classic from July 14 to 22 in the Netherlands.

Another Vietnamese chessman, Nguyen Ngoc Truong Son, lost five points to have the Elo rating of 2651, ranking 110th in FIDE rating list. This is Son’s lowest position in the past one year.

Compiled by S. Tung