Said, in particular, exceeded expectations and won the prize for Best Performance - a notable achievement.
At the beginning of the tournament he was seeded 51st out of the 57 participants.
However he beat a number of players rated above him to finally occupy an excellent 16th place. In doing so he finished above players with international titles.
Said played all his games against opponents rated above him. So obtaining a 61% score against players who were all expected to beat him is a remarkable achievement.
He won four of his nine games (including one against an opponent rated a massive 361 points more than him - on paper this means Said had less than 1% chance of winning that particular game), drew three and lost only two.
It is no surprise that this mathematics teacher from St Martins Institute easily had the best performance improvement when compared to his starting rating. Said expects to see his rating shoot up by 57 points a consequence of this tournament.
Pettersson played against a number of players from different countries, includiing a Woman Internationl Master, and did enough to defend his current international rating.
Source: maltasport.com
