Grandmaster Le Quang Liem played in the semi-finals against opponent Grandmaster Kirill Alekseenko (Austria) in the early morning of July 5 (Vietnam time) at the Leon Masters 2026 Lightning Chess Tournament in Spain.
Last year, Le Quang Liem miraculously won in the final to win the Leon Masters 2025 rapid chess tournament.
Therefore, this year, the Vietnamese grandmaster competes with the goal of defending the championship.
The four players invited to this year's tournament are Le Quang Liem, Kirill Alekseenko, Jaime Santos (Spain) and young face Faustino Oro (Argentina).
In the duel with Kirill Alekseenko, Le Quang Liem focused on playing the first 4 quick games.
Starting the first set, Kirill Alekseenko led the white team to maintain the advantage and decide his chances, thereby winning 1-0 after 34 moves.
In the 2nd set, Le Quang Liem and the opponent player had a draw.
In the 3rd set, Le Quang Liem led the black army behind Kirill Alekseenko but calmly found a good opportunity to win an important victory after 57 moves.
Entering the 4th set, the chess players of both sides focused on not letting any mistakes happen. Therefore, this set ended in a draw.
After 4 quick chess games, Le Quang Liem and Kirill Alekseenko temporarily drew 2-2. According to the tournament regulations, the 2 players were forced to play tie-breaks with 2 blitz chess games to determine the final result.
In the first blitz chess game, Quang Liem won. In the second blitz chess game, Kirill Alekseenko won. The two players continued to need the final blitz chess game to decide the outcome. Here, Le Quang Liem won.
In the end, Le Quang Liem won 4-3 in the semi-finals, winning the right to enter the final.
In the regulations of the Leon Masters Rapid Chess Tournament, with rapid chess, each player has 20 minutes for the game plus 10 seconds after each move (20+10). In rapid chess, the time will be 5+3.
In the early semi-final of the tournament, Jaime Santos defeated Faustino Oro with a score of 3-1 right after finishing the first 4 rapid chess games.
The tournament will take place until the end of July 5, local time in Spain.
