TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - An Indonesian student from the Gunadarma University won the first prize at the 2nd Mongolian Open Chess Tournament in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Mochamad Akbar Marwan, a lecturer at the Gunadarma University, stated here on Wednesday that the Mongolia Open Chess Tournament, which was attended by 40 participants from six countries, was held at the Central Palace of Culture of Mongolia Trade Union, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on June 17-26, 2017.

International Master (IM) Lutfi Ali, a student of the Faculty of Economics, Gunadarma University, was the first winner.

The second place was won by Grand Master (GM) Susanto Megaranto, who is also a student of the Gunadarma University majoring in management.

The second ever Open Mongolia Chess Tournament was a competition that could produce the title norm.

Two other Indonesian players competing in the tournament were IM Farid Firmansyah, who is a student of Management and FIDE Master (FM) Arif Abdul Hafiz.

Ali, with a Rating ELO FIDE 2422 before the match, started as the sixth seed out of the 40 participants and managed to bag the first rank, with 6.5 Match Point.

The Mongolia Open Chess Tournament 2017 was dominated by the hosts comprising four GM, seven IM, seven FM, and two International Womens Masters.

"Although the number of participants is not too many, the competition at the Mongolia Open Chess Tournament 2017 was pretty stiff, especially as the Mongolian players have made rapid progress," Marwan noted.

The match system used at the tournament was the Swiss System 9 round, with a 90-minute time control, with an additional 30 seconds for each step, starting from the first step. The pairing used the Swiss Manager computer program.

Gunadarma University had won the CanSat International Competition 2016 held on Sept 21-22 last year.

ANTARA