Leon Masters is a traditional rapid chess tournament held annually in Spain with the participation of four famous players. This year's tournament takes place from July 4 to 6 and the Organizing Committee has specifically invited four contemporary stars Anand Viswanathan, Le Quang Liem, Jaime Santos Latasa and 11-year-old "prodigy" Faustino Oro to compete in a knockout format.
This is the first time Le Quang Liem has participated in the Leon Masters in Spain, coinciding with the time he was supposed to participate to defend his championship title at the Biel Grandmasters Chess Festival in Switzerland.
Vietnam's No. 1 chess player has won three championships in Biel but decided to withdraw from this year's tournament for personal reasons.
Le Quang Liem defeated Santos Latasa (left cover) and Anand Viswanathan (right) at Leon Masters 2025
In the semi-finals, Le Quang Liem defeated home player Santos Latasa. He drew four rapid games with Santos but won both blitz games to set the final score at 4-2.
This result brought Le Quang Liem into the final match with former chess champion Anand Viswanathan on the night of July 6.
Le Quang Liem defeated Santos Latasa in the semi-finals
The two sides drew the first game of the final match with extremely tight calculations, without any mistakes. In the second game, Le Quang Liem held the white pieces and pressured Anand in the middle game, gaining an advantage and winning after 58 moves.
There was no need to resort to blitz games to decide the fate of the Leon Masters final, as in the third rapid game, Le Quang Liem forced Anand to concede after the 34th move in about twenty minutes of play.
Anand shook hands with Le Quang Liem in the final game of the final match.
With a 2.5-0.5 lead with only one game left, Le Quang Liem was considered to have secured the championship and the two sides shaking hands in the final game, which was only a formality. Winning 3-1, Le Quang Liem became the champion of the Leon Masters 2025 Chess Tournament.
Anand, 55 years old, is the first Asian chess player to win the world's number 1 position. After a six-year reign (2007-2013), the Indian chess master had to give up the "throne" to Magnus Carlsen. On the current FIDE rankings, Anand is ranked 13th in the world in standard chess, 11th in rapid chess and 18th in blitz chess.
Last month, Le Quang Liem won the individual gold medal in board 4 at the 2025 World Rapid Chess Team Championship held in London, England. Le Quang Liem joined the Freedom team which included many great players such as Anand Viswanathan, Rauf Mamedov, Samuel Sevian, Alexey Sarana, Haik M Matirosyan, Anna Muzychuk, Teodora Injac and Sarbartho Mani. Quang Liem won the gold medal in board 4, Samuel Sevian (2,636) won the gold medal in board 3 and Haik M Martirosyan won the gold medal in board 6.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/ha-danh-ky-anand-viswanathan-le-quang-liem-vo-dich-leon-masters-196250707063529617.htm
Comment (0)