We reach a middlegame that Liem Le is going to be quite happy about. Lots of pieces on the board, a complex structure, and no advantage for White! Ideal when in need of a win.
This knight is quite a monster of a piece. And even if Donchenko manages to remove it, the structural weakness will remain. Some pressure already for the German to navigate.
Liem Le wants to push his pawn at the right moment, kicking away Donchenko's knight. After that, the pawn could fall.
Donchenko pushed the pawn in order to deal with the pressure, but now the queenside opens up in a way that favors Liem Le.
Liem Le gives Donchenko a chance to immediately get back in it! It was necessary to first trade rooks, to deflect Donchenko's queen away from the defense of the left-hand pawn and cut out the knight jump.
This is the point! The queen still being in the center means that the left-hand pawn is well defended. This is the detail that Liem Le missed when he mistakenly avoided the rook trade.
A somewhat risky move that Donchenko might regret, since now his knight is less stable than before.
The good news for Donchenko is that a lot of material is getting traded off the board. It's still a bit trickier to play the position for him it seems, since his pawns are under more piece pressure than Liem Le's.
This position looks so risky in practice for Donchenko, it's hard to understand why he allowed Liem Le to plant the knight in the center.
Donchenko needs to trade off pawns here to at least activate his rook. Otherwise, he's going to be left with zero counterplay.
It's over! This is what happens when the position is objectively not so much worse but in practice just horrendously difficult to play. It's almost impossible to avoid blundering when playing such a fast time control.
This was the point of the previous move giving the check. Donchenko's king got forced onto a poor square, and now the fork will cost him his queen.
Liem Le cashes in, and is now winning the queen.
This one is going to sting. Donchenko seemed to be coasting to qualification, but it seems that the pressure got to him.
Move 28 in particular, the pawn push that allowed Liem Le to establish his knight in the powerful central outpost, proved to be the beginning of the end.
Many grandmaster commentators were screaming that this move would be Donchenko's undoing, and attributing it to a case of severe nerves from the young German.
Liem Le, the more experience of the two, did not take long to profit from this mistake. And just a few moves later, he was able to play a clever but quite typical tactical sequence, that netted him the queen. After that, it was straightforward technique and Donchenko was forced to resign.
More games to come!