Le, Quang Liem – Mamedyarov, S.

2709 2022 · White wins (resignation, time or agreement)

Budapest Gambit, 2022: Mamedyarov (2767) gives up a pawn with 2...e5 to get his pieces moving, and Le Quang Liem (2709) meets the pressure head-on with 7.h4. After 19...Rc2 and 20...Rfc8 the black rooks settle on the second rank and the engine has Black clearly on top. The turning point comes in two half-moves: 27.Bf3 lets the chance slip, swinging the evaluation from -3.2 to 0.0, and then 27...Rxb2 hands everything back, from 0.0 to +3.4. Le Quang Liem converts cleanly through 36.Rxf7, finishing at 86% at-least-good moves against 74%. The lesson: in sharp positions, a winning game rarely survives one loose move.