Hanoi (VNA) - Top Vietnamese chess players Le Quang Liem and Nguyen NgocTruong Son are competing at the FIDE World Cup 2019 which began in the town ofKhanty-Mansiysk, Russia, on September 10.
Vietnam’sNo 1 Grandmaster Liem (Elo 2708) who is seeded No 22 will play AleksejAleksandrov of Belarus (Elo 2577) in the first round.
His teammate Grandmaster Son(Elo 2638) will meet stronger opponent Kirill Alekseenko (Elo 2671) of thehosts. Son is seeded No 80 while Alekseenko is No 49.
The favourites for thetournament are Ding Liren of China, world No 3, Anish Giri ofthe Netherlands, world No 4 and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave from France, worldNo 7.
This year's knock-outtournament has lured 128 players competing in seven rounds. In matchesfrom round one to six, athletes will compete in two classical games while thebronze-medal and final matches on October 4 consist of fourgames.
If scoreis a draw, they will play tie-break games to identify the winner.
Thefinalists of the tournament will qualify for the CandidatesTournament for the World Chess Championship 2020.
The totalprize money is 1.6 million USD, with the winner walking away with 110,000 USD.
In theprevious World Cup in 2017 in Tbilisi, Georgia, Armenian Grandmaster LevonAronian took the top position for the second time in his career.-VNA