Two in a row

BY: BOBBY ANG

(As published in Chess Piece, BusinessWorld, 18 March 2011)

Aeroflot Open "A"
Moscow, Russia, Feb. 7-19, 2011

Top Final Standings
1-3. GM Le Quang Liem VIE 2664, GM Nikita Vitiugov RUS 2709, GM Evgeny Tomashevsky RUS 2695, 6.5/9
4-10. GM Denis Khismatullin RUS 2649, GM Yu Yangyi CHN 2607, GM Gata Kamsky USA 2730, GM Maxim Rodshtein ISR 2625, GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov UZB 2681, GM Rauf Mamedov AZE 2660, GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2665, 6.0/9
11-22. GM Chanda Sandipan IND 2641, GM Dmitry Bocharov RUS 2605, GM Dmitry Andreikin RUS 2689, GM Boris Grachev RUS 2660, GM Vadim Zvjaginsev RUS 2660, GM Tigran L. Petrosian ARM 2604, GM Dmitry Jakovenko RUS 2718, GM Mikhail Kobalia RUS 2666, GM Sanan Sjugirov RUS 2626, GM Ding Liren CHN 2628, GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave FRA 2715, GM Zhou Jianchao CHN 2655, 5.5/9

Total of 86 participants. Time Control: 120 minutes for the first 60 moves, then additional 15 minutes play to finish. 30-second increment given after each move starting move 61

History is full of flash in the pans.

GM Vladimir Savon won first place in the 1971 USSR Chess Championship with an undefeated 15/21. Savon, though then only an International Master, finished well ahead of former world champions Mikhail Tal and Vasily Smyslov (both scoring 13.5), future world champion Anatoly Karpov (13), and a host of other strong grandmasters, including Leonid Stein (12); David Bronstein and Lev Polugaevsky (both 11.5); Mark Taimanov (11); and Efim Geller (9.5). He was never to reach such heights again.

You have heard of GM Andrei Sokolov, right? He announced himself to the chess world in 1984 by winning the USSR Championship in his first attempt. He was clearly a future world contender and represented the Soviet Union in two Olympiads: 1984 Thessaloniki and 1986 Dubai, scoring 2/3 (or 67%) of the maximum points. Qualifying for the Candidates matches in 1985, Sokolov defeated Rafael Vaganian heavily (6-2) and then came from behind to upset Artur Yusupov 7.5-6.5. In the final, however, he was completely outplayed by Anatoly Karpov 3.5-7.5.

Being the finalist, he was seeded outright into the 1988 Candidates’ matches, where he went down in a huge upset to Canada’s Kevin Spraggett. Then, abruptly, his bubble burst and he could not maintain his level of play. Sokolov has since disappeared from the top 100 players’ lists. Nowadays, when people speak of Sokolov, they are referring to Ivan Sokolov, the Bosnian/Dutch player.

There is a tried and true formula for proving that you are not a flash in the pan. Mikhail Tal won the USSR Championship in 1957 with a highly tactical and risky style. Everybody attributed the win to luck, but Tal silenced all his critics by winning the championship again in the succeeding year.

And this is where we start talking about Le Quang Liem, the Vietnamese chess genius.
The annual Aeroflot Open in Moscow has been the graveyard of many Asian pretenders. With its very deep reservoir of tough but unknown GMs who are hungry for a bit of glory they have made it difficult for any outsider to make a mark. Year after year the best Asian GMs would try their luck in the Aeroflot Open in Moscow, and they would come back home with their tale between their legs. GM Darwin Laylo had a good showing in the 2009 Khanty-Mansiysk World Cup and before coming back home decided to try his luck in Aeroflot. The result? He withdrew after seven rounds with a total score of 0 wins, one draw, six losses. There is just no rest day for you in Moscow -- every single opponent is strong.

Le Quang Liem upset the applecart by winning Aeroflot last year. And, to prove his point, he won again this year. What can I say? He has made me a believer.
GM Ken Rogoff, the famous economist, was interviewed recently in New in Chess and describes the particular strengths of chessplayers: "You can have someone who has a phenomenal memory and you make use of that, and you can have someone who has very good calculating and you can use that. You can be someone who is very good at drawing analogies. Maybe you don’t have a great memory and maybe you don’t calculate well, but you are very good at drawing analogies between different problems. It is a matter of adopting what your talents are."

Le Quang is a calculator.

Former FIDE World Champion Alexander Kahlifman, who has been working with Le Quang since Aeroflot last year, had this to say: "What a school is and what its presence or absence means is something that you can understand very well if you analyze with Asian chess players. In February and March I worked a little bit with Le Quang Liem, and I will say honestly that sometimes my eyes popped out of my head. He is also a very talented boy (maybe not a Carlsen, but definitely out of the ordinary), and he is trying very hard to grow. But at the moment all he does is calculate and calculate variations. He calculates very well, by the way. But a school is, in my opinion, what you would call a basis of positional principles, playing from general considerations and this sort of thing. It’s very hard to learn it even from good books. In order to know which pieces should go where and when to exchange what, that is when it is very important to work with a qualified trainer."

Another player, Evgeny Tomashevsky, wrote that Le Quang Liem is less governed by positional considerations than by concrete calculation: "if there’s no forced loss, then that means everything’s OK" -- the computer approach to chess, which may well be the future. For me, Liem certainly is an enigma of a chess player. I can’t explain exactly what’s behind his achieving such results, but it’s clear that the man has a crazy talent for tactics. Besides that, he’s got a great capacity for work and ability to focus."

Aside from all these pluses, I believe the most important thing is what Le Quang Liem’s own explanation is of his victory at the Russian Chess Federation website:
"There’s no magic. I simply really love chess, I study it constantly, and I try to play in every game rather than make draws. It simply went well!"

Now I will show you his victory over a former world championship candidate and a difficult man to beat: Gata Kamsky. Gata is a technical player -- once he gets the tiniest advantage he would transpose to the endgame and grind away for the win. The virtue of such a style is that even if you do not succeed then you get a draw.
Le Quang goes after Kamsky’s weakness -- the opening. He played a tricky move order which achieves the desired effect. Kamsky is confused, errs, and quickly goes under.

Le Quang Liem (2664) -- Kamsky,Gata (2730) [D11]
Aeroflot Open A Moscow RUS (4), 11.02.2011
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Le Quang Liem and Wesley So are in this informal competition to see who will be the next Asian to reach the 2700 plateau. I am rooting for Wesley, but right now it is looking like Le Quang is way ahead.

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