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.