Vietnam's number one chess player, Le Quang Liem, maintained consistent form at the 2026 World Chess All-Around Championship in Hungary.
Hanoi [Vietnam], November 14: Le Quang Liem plays a crucial match at the World All-Around Chess Championship.
In the third group stage match of the 2026 World Chess All-Around Championship, held late on November 13th, Le Quang Liem (All-Around Elo 2683) drew with the number one player from Hungary, Richard Rapport (Elo 2676), in both the first and second legs.
This result earned Le Quang Liem an additional 2 points, bringing his total to 10 points and placing him second in Group B. World number 3 Fabiano Caruana (USA) remains at the top of the group with 14 points. Le Quang Liem will face Fabiano Caruana today. The number one Vietnamese player needs to defeat his opponent to compete for the top spot and the single semi-final spot.
This poses a significant challenge for Le Quang Liem because Fabiano Caruana possesses an all-around Elo rating of 2740 and a standard Elo rating of 2783, ranking 3rd in the world. Fabiano Caruana, 34 years old, was once considered a chess prodigy in the United States. His most impressive achievement was winning the 2018 Candidates Tournament, becoming a challenger to the reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen (Norway). In the match for the "king of chess" title, Fabiano Caruana drew with Magnus Carlsen in 12 standard games but then lost in the rapid tie-break.
According to statistics, Le Quang Liem and Fabiano Caruana have faced each other 45 times. In those matches, the number one Vietnamese player won 14, drew 17, and lost 14 against his opponent. This result shows that Le Quang Liem is not inferior to the world's number 3 ranked player. Therefore, Vietnamese chess fans expect him to achieve a good result when he faces Fabiano Caruana again.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
