Chess Masters Grace Lowell Lecture Hall

Undergraduates competed against Grandmasters and a 12-year-old prodigy as Harvard hosted more than 50 chess players last weekend at the Harvard Open Chess Tournament.

Four students from Harvard participated in the 27th annual tournament, held in Lowell Lecture Hall.

Players at the tournament competed in open divisions or divisions based on skill level as determined by a standardized score. In the under-1600 division, Tun-Kai "T-K" Yang '00 tied for first. In the under-1400 division, Vikram Prasad, a graduate student in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, took home second place in his first tournament ever

Shearwood "Woody" McClelland '01, president of the Harvard Chess Club and organizer of the event tied for third place in the open division with Jacob Chudnovsky '01. Both Chudnovsky and McClelland scored three out of four possible points in the tournament.

McClelland's performance improved over the course of the tournament. In his first match, against 12-year-old Jack Stolerman, McClelland was disappointed by his loss.

But he said he was cheered up when Stolerman went on to play very well in the tournament. "He's definitely a prodigy," McClelland said.

Chudnovsky, who is the top-rated player at Harvard and among the best under-21 players in the nation, said he was not pleased with his play early in the tournament.

"Yesterday I was doing terribly," he said.

By his last match, however, Chudnovsky was able to shake off the cobwebs.

"It was an easy win," he said.

Both Chudnovsky and McClelland complained that it's hard for busy students to remain competitive in chess, and estimated that their chess skills have gone downhill during their time at Harvard, because they haven't had the time to train.

At the age of 15, Chudnovsky chose not to go professional, but he has not given up all of his chess ambitions. He hopes to qualify for the U.S. Junior Invitational next year.

The chess club, which was founded in 1874, is planning a busy fall. The much-anticipated Harvard-Yale match will take place, by tradition, on the morning of The Game. Harvard hopes to make this year its eighth straight win.

A match pitting students against faculty is also in the works, at which students said they are confident they will be victorious. "I wouldn't compete in something that I didn't expect to do well in," McClelland said. "I think we can beat them."

Grandmaster Alexander Ivanov and International Master-elect William Paschall tied for first place overall in the tournament.