Le Quang Liem (second from the left).

Vietnam’s international chess grandmaster Le Quang Liem has added six points to his Elo rating after winning the Pan American Inter-Collegiate Chess Championship at Texas’ Webster University on January 1.

Liem defeated Curtis A. Winter (Elo 1972), Michael Lee (2387), Niclas Huschenbeth (2537), and Leonid Kritz (2604), and drew with Yaroslav Zherbukh (2614) and Kovalyov (2617).

Liem dominated Board 1, joined by his equally impressive first place teammates - Wesley So and Ray Robson - at Boards 3 and 4.

The tournament lured 42 chess teams representing over 20 American and Canadian universities, in which seeing the participation of lots of chess grandmasters. Texas’ Webster University consists of Le Quang Liem, Wesley So, Geord Meier, and Ray Robson.

With 6 wining games, Texas’ Webster University ranked top at the event, following by Baltimore-A and Illinois-A teams.

The Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship is the foremost intercollegiate team chess championship in the Americas. Started in 1946, the Pan-Am has been held under various names and formats.

Hosted in part by the United States Chess Federation, the tour is open to any team comprising four players and up to two alternates from the same post-secondary school (university, college, community college) in North America, Central America, South America, or the Caribbean.

This tour selected the best four teams to compete at President's Cup (informally known as the "Final Four of College Chess" and typically held in the first weekend of April), which determines the US National College or University Champion.

However, each university has only one team for President's Cup, so Webster-b team has been replaced by chess team of Texas Tech University.

Source: VNA