Vietnam’s premier chess player Le Quang Liem rallied to his third title in a row in the past month after joining his Webster University peers to win the 2015 President’s Cup that took place at the New York Athletic Club in New York City from March 27 to 29.
The annual tournament, also known as the Final Four of College Chess, featured the top four US schools from the most recent Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship (Pan-Am): Webster University, University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), Texas Tech University and University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
The three-day event was run as a fixed-roster team round-robin tournament, scored on individual (not team) points. Each team – made up of four players and two alternates – played three rounds, playing one full match against each of the other schools.
The Webster University team, comprising Quang Liem, Ray Robson, Illya Nyzhnyk and Vasif Durarbayli, surged to the top spot with seven points after winning two matches against UTD and UMBC by the same score of 3.5-0.5, during which Liem beat UTD’s George Margvelashvili and drew with UMBC’s Niclas Huschenbeth.
In the last round against Texas Tech University, Liem ousted Yaroslav Zherebukh to secure Webster University a 3-1 victory as well as its third consecutive President’s Cup championship title with ten points overall.
March proved to be a very successful month for Quang Liem as he claimed the overall top position at three international competitions including the Zone 3.3 qualifying round of the 2015 World Chess Championships and the 2015 HDBank International Open Chess Tournament in Ho Chi Minh City, and the President’s Cup in the US.
Nhan Dan