Four players share the lead after three rounds of the Asian University Chess Championship organized by the Iran University Sports Federation under the auspices of the Asian University Sports Federation in cooperation with the Asian Chess Federation, online yesterday 27th December at Chess.com. The tournament is scheduled 9am daily (UAE time) with rounds 4-6 on Monday 28th December and rounds 7-9 on Tuesday 29th December. Closing ceremony is at 10am on 30th December.

Forty eight players from 12 countries are competing in the 9-round Swiss system. The tournament is an individual championship with four players per country. Team score is calculated from the scores of the top three of each country. Competing are teams from Indonesia, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Oman, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

IM Khalil Mousavi Palatkaleh of Iran, IM Uurtsaikh Agibileg of Mongolia, Tupfah Khymnorkaew of Thailand and IM Lutfi Ali Muhamma of Indonesia are tied with 3 points each.

Palatkaleh, a 22-year old Sports Science student at the Islamic Azad University beat Jagadeesh Aaditya of India in the first round and followed up with two wins against Mongolians Enkhbaatar Enkhnar and Byambausuren Gardimagnai.

Agbileg, a 19-year old business major at the National University of Mongolia, beat Adil Sharshembiev and Arzybek Sezdbekov of Kyrgyzstan then scored against Bardia Veisi of Iran to share the lead.

Khumnorkaew Tupfah, 22-year-old Engineering student at the King Mongkut's Univeristy of Technology, beat unrated Faras Al Zaabi of Oman in the opening round then scored against IMs Theolifus Taher and Nevendra Priasmoro of Indonesia for a total of 3 points.

Ali Muhammad Lutfi, 23, Economics student at Gunadarma University, beat Ralph Khairallah of Lebanon, Adithya Prasad of Singapore and H. Herath of Sri Lanka to join the lead pack.

Two players follow the leaders with 2.5 points each, namely IM Mersad Khodashenas of Iran and IM A. Harisrhnan of India.

Last week, Khulan Enksaikhan, 25, of Mongolia scored 7.5 points out of 9 rounds to win the gold medal in the individual championship and power her team to victory in the Asian Women’s University Chess Championship. Indonesia won the silver medal while Iran won the bronze medal.

2020 Asian University Chess Championship - Men’s category Day 2 games are streamed at 9:00 AM GMT+4 on Chess.com and also YouTube channel: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pADonXRteE8

All results are available on: 

http://chess-results.com/tnr542942.aspx?lan=1&art=0&turdet=YES&flag=30

(Source: ACF)