HÀ NỘI — Phạm Lê Thảo Nguyên finished in fifth place at the 2017 King Salman World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships’ rapid event December 28 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

After three days of competition, Nguyên had seven wins, six draws and two losses. She earned 10 points and shared the fifth place with five other masters in the women’s category.

On December 28, Nguyên’s loss in her second match to Chinese Grandmaster (GM) Lei Tingjie ended her hope of entering the top three.

However, the Vietnamese International Master (IM) came back strongly and beat IM Abdumalik Zhansaya of Kazakhstan and Women’s Grandmaster (WGM) Mamedjarova Turkan of Azerbaijan.

Her two draws were against Russian IM Marina Nechaeva and WGM Huang Qian from China.

Nguyên brought home a bonus of US$9,440 and 66 points for her world position. It is expected that Nguyên will jump to No 19 when the International Chess Federation announces January’s rankings in the next few days.

Her teammates WGM Hoàng Thị Bảo Trâm, Võ Thị Kim Phụng and Nguyễn Thị Mai Hưng sat at the 46th, 58th and 70th positions, respectively.

The winner was China’s GM Ju Wenjun with 11 points. She was followed by Lei and Elisabeth Paehtz of Georgia.

In the Open class, Việt Nam’s best hope, GM Lê Quang Liêm, did not have a good result. He grabbed three more points after five matches on the last day.

But this did not help him gain a high position. With a total of nine points, Liêm was No 30. Although Liêm received a bonus of $1,250 for the position, he lost 19 points and will drop to No 20 next month.

The other Vietnamese, GM Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn, ranked No 43 with 8.5 points.

Indian GM Anand Viswanathan topped the ranking with 10.5 points. GM Vladimir Fedoseev and Ian Nepomniachtchi, both of Russia, came second and third, respectively.

The Masters will continue with 21 games in the blitz chess event on December 29 and 30. — VNS