UTRGV Chess Team: A Hidden Gem
Photo Courtesy of: Bartek Macieja. From left to right: Gleb Dudin, Viktor Gazik, Juraj Druska, Kamil Dragun (former player), Irakli beradze, Bartek Macieja.
The UTRGV Chess Team won the U.S. National Collegiate Rapid Chess Championship held online through lichess.org Oct. 29. The championship is one of three national college championships.
After nine rounds, UTRGV and the University of Missouri scored 27.5 out of 36 possible points, resulting in a co-championship. A university’s final score consists of the added scores of a team’s top four players and their performance through nine rounds.
Sixteen students from UTRGV participated in the championship. The top three, scoring 7 points each, were Psychology freshman Gleb Dudin, Economics and Finance junior Viktor Gazik and Psychology sophomore Jakub Fus. Tied for UTRGV’s top fourth scorer were Criminal Justice graduate student Tamas Petenyi, Computer Science graduate student Irakli Beradze, Disaster Studies graduate student Tianqi Wang and Computer Engineering freshman Ekin Baris Ozenir.
Third place went to Webster University with 25.5 points. The University of Texas at Dallas and Texas Tech University were right behind with 24 points.
UTRGV Chess head coach Bartek Macieja said the rapid championship is one of three hosted annually: classical, rapid and blitz. The difference lies in the different time control formats. The classical championship occurs over the board while the other two are online. Each classical game may last up to four hours, while the rapid and blitz games are much shorter, lasting 30 and 10 minutes respectively.
The 2023 Classical Championship took place in January, in which the top four teams advanced to the Final Four held in April at St. Louis. UTRGV advanced to the next stage but finished third.
Now, the team has trained to make a comeback after last winning in 2021.
“I train the students; we meet every week,” Macieja said, referring to preparation for the 2024 Classical Championship. “The second part of [training] is participation in training tournaments. … This is all to keep them in shape for our most important championships.”
According to Petenyi, chess international master, the regulations did not allow for a playoff and UTRGV finished on an equal square with the University of Missouri. If tiebreaks were considered, UTRGV’s Chess Team had played the stronger tournaments and would have been declared champions outright.
“It was an amazing feeling to be crowned co-champions but still unexpected because we left behind a number of teams from major universities with much stronger players,” Petenyi said. “Five UTRGV players finished in the top ten players of the tournament. We really did put on an impressive show.”
The other three top scorers were unavailable for an interview.
According to Macieja, Webster University is the current classical chess champion and UTRGV’s biggest rival. He said it was exciting to have overcome them.
Macieja said the reason behind UTRGV’s Chess Team is the students’ preparation and motivation to win. They feel at home and welcomed at the institution as it has helped in building a good atmosphere for the team.
“UTRGV has one of the strongest chess teams in the United States,” Petenyi said. “We are a relatively small local university, and we have one of the best chess programs in the entire country.”
Ten players from UTRGV will travel over Thanksgiving weekend from Nov. 22-26, 2023, to Charlotte, N.C. to compete in the U.S. Masters, an official U.S. Chess National Championship.
