UT Dallas conquered the boards at the 2017 Texas Collegiate Super Finals championship Sunday with the help of two former UTRGV Grandmasters.
The A teams for UT Dallas, Texas Tech and UTRGV all tied for first place, but when the B team scores were tallied, UTD placed first, UTRGV second and Texas Tech third.
UTRGV hosted the tournament in Salón Cassia on the Brownsville campus.
The Texas Collegiate Super Finals championship is an annual chess tournament where the three best colleges in Texas send two teams to compete for the title. It is the most prestigious collegiate chess event in Texas.
Twenty-eight students from a total of 17 countries attended the tournament.
They are from countries such as Canada, Colombia, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba, France, India, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, Spain, Nigeria, Paraguay, Poland, Russia, the United States and Venezuela.
“This is our most international event this year. In this little room, we have about 20 different countries being represented by world-class players,” said Kristin Croyle, UTRGV vice president for Student Success. “Having tournaments like this helps us, in Brownsville, grow our chess presence.”
This year, Texas Tech, UT Dallas and UTRGV qualified to participate in the event, with two teams each that competed in four rounds.
UTRGV was represented by UTRGV-A, which consists of Grandmasters Kamil Dragun, Andrey Stukopin, Vladimir Belous and Carlos Hevia. UTRGV-B is made up of International Masters Guillermo Vazquez, Joshua Ruiz, Felix Ynojosa and FIDE Master Yannick Kambrath.
Texas Tech-A was represented by Grandmaster (GM) Andrii Baryshpolets, International Masters (IM) Sergey Matsenko, Pavlo Vorontsov, Evgeny Shtembuliak and Luis Torres.
Grandmasters Anton Kovalyov, Gil Popilski, Denis Kadric and Angel Arribas and IM Eylon Nakar played for UTD-A. GMs Holden Hernandez, Dani Raznikov and Razvan Preotu and IM Prasanna Rao competed as UTD-B.
Hernandez and Kovalyov both previously played for UTRGV.
The Texas Tech-B team was composed of Woman IM Iryna Andrenko, Woman GM Carla Heredia, Woman Candidate Master Claudia Munoz, and Shruthy Giyyar and Opuriche Duruoha.
Unlike most chess competitions, players in the tournament competed in teams, rather than individually.
“It’s more pressure because your team is depending on you. So if you lose, it’s not that you’re going to lose, it’s the team that may be in trouble,” said Ruiz, a computer science sophomore.
Teamwork was vital in this tournament.
The team practiced vigorously for months leading up to the competition.
“We practiced our [opening] lines, really practiced our openings,” said Hevia, a computer science sophomore.
Kovalyov, who was a member of the chess team at UTRGV until he graduated in May, competed for UT Dallas, where he is pursuing a master’s degree in computer science.
He defeated the former World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand in September. He returned to Brownsville to compete against his former teammates.
Vazquez, a physics and computer science junior, competed against Kovalyov in round two, which Kovalyov won.
“Having practiced and played tournaments with [Kovalyov] before means that we both know about each other’s playing styles, so it would be an advantage for whoever could get the most out of that information,” he said. “However, I did not feel any tension because of this, as we were even talking normally after the game.”
Kovalyov also did not feel any resentment toward his competitor and former teammate.
“In any case, no special strategies are used. It’s just another game I have to play for my team,” he said.
With the completion of the Texas Collegiate Super Finals, the UTRGV Chess Team will now focus on the 2017 Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, scheduled for December in Columbus, Ohio.
“In November, we will play two or three training tournaments just to prepare. This will also give the students time to study for their finals for their classes,” UTRGV Chess Coach Bartek Macieja said.
