For the second time in two months, two UT Dallas chess team members have captured top rankings in a prominent tournament after squaring off against each other in the final round.

The two players were International Master (IM) Julio Sadorra and Grandmaster (GM) Alejandro Ramírez, and the tournament was the 76th Southwest Open, played in Corpus Christi over Labor Day weekend.

In a repeat of last month’s U.S. Open, when they also met in the final round, the two played to a draw, leaving Ramírez with a finishing score of 5½ -1½ and sharing first and second place with IM Max Cornejo of UT Brownsville.

Sadorra, a sophomore psychology major, tied for third through fifth place with two other UT Dallas team members – GM Cristian Chirila, a freshman international political economy major; and IM Marko Zivanic, a computer science graduate student.

Ramírez said the competition was intense all around.

“While I ended up playing three of my team members in the Southwest Open, the most important game was against GM Cristian Chirila,” said Ramírez, a graduate student in the School of Arts and Humanities’ arts and technology program. “He is a freshman and new to our team this year. He is a grandmaster, so of course he is a strong player, and I was not familiar with his game.

“When we faced off, he was the sole leader of the tournament, a half point ahead of me. This was a must-win game if I were to win the tournament,” continued Ramírez. “I played solidly and the game became tactically complicated. After all of the exchanges, I emerged ahead.” 

“While this a good first result, we still have much work to do in preparation for the major college events like the Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Championship,” said Rade Milovanovic, UT Dallas’ chess coach and himself an international master.

UT Dallas chess team members will next compete in the U.S. Class Championships Oct. 1-3 in Houston.