Vietnam
Widely known in online chess circles under his chesscom nickname wonderfultime, International Master Tuan Minh Le has for a long time been one of the strongest Vietnamese players. Already back in 2015, he distinguished himself by winning the Vietnam Championship in front of a dozen of IMs and GMs, despite being ‘an ordinary’ FM himself. Ever since, he has been consistently rated among the top 5 players in the country, with the current FIDE Elo of 2515 (as of November 2019).
Tuan first learned the game when he was 7 years old. He simply found a chessboard at his home and got captivated by the game. 2-3 months later, he joined the chess club and had his first chess lesson. 17 years later, he is a proud owner of the International Master title (which he achieved in September 2015) with two Grandmaster norms (which he achieved in 2017 and 2018, respectively).
Apart from his victory at the Vietnam Championship in 2015, his greatest over-the-board achievements include the share of the 2nd place at the Vietnam HD Bank Open, 2nd place at the Malaysia Chess Festival, 1st place at the Bhopal GM International Tournament, as well as victories at the national blitz and rapid championships. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been that much active as a tournament player in recent years, due to his university obligations. The good news is that in July 2020 he graduated at the Faculty of Law and will now have more time to devote to chess. He intends to try his luck as a chess professional in the upcoming years.
On the other hand, his lack of activity in “real chess” was more than compensated by his tremendous activity in online chess websites and tournaments, which brought him international recognition. Under his nickname wonderfultime on chess.com and mutdpro Tuan has been known as a real “speed demon” and has been ranked consistently in the 2900-3000 rating spheres in both blitz on the bullet on both websites. He particularly distinguished himself by winning two strong tournaments: monthly Titled Tuesday tournament on chess.com in August 2018 and Titled Arena #7 on Lichess.org (ahead none other but the World Champion Magnus Carlsen himself).
Tuan also already has the experience of playing in the Pro Chess League. In the seasons 2018 and 2019, he competed as a member of Pittsburgh Pawngrabbers. After the reorganization of the league, he became a Free Agent. In November 2019., he replied positively at the manager’s inquiry, joined the team and, as they say, the rest is history. With his strong performance in the Pro Chess League Qualifier 2020, he played an important role in bringing the Pro Chess League to Croatia.
We hope he will continue to amaze us and the chess world with his play and that he will perform well for the Croatia Bulldogs in the upcoming year(s).
As he himself said:
I hope my biggest success in chess is yet to come…
