A step forward: MSA Chess Team wins Texas Grade Championships; collegiate women’s team takes 2nd place at first national event

The UTRGV Mathematics and Science Academy Chess Team won the 2021 Texas Grade Championships in the classification for 12th-graders, which took place Oct. 30 and 31 in Houston.

The team, which consists of MSA students Carlos de Leon, Adolfo Balderas and William McNutt, won with 14 points out of a possible 18, according to Bartek Macieja, UTRGV’s chess coach.

McNutt also went on to win the individual championship.

“Before the tournament, William McNutt was ranked [fourth],” Macieja said in an email sent to The Rider on  Nov. 2. 

In the same email, he wrote that McNutt’s main opponent only needed to draw his last game to finish with the same number of points as McNutt. 

“However, the main opponent played the last round against our student, Carlos de Leon,” Macieja said. “By winning, not only did Carlos advance to the fourth place, but he also opened the path for William to win the competition.”

The next tournament is the National K-12 Grade Championship, and will take place Dec. 3-5, in Orlando, Florida.

UTRGV’s new women’s chess team also competed Oct. 31 in the first U.S. National Collegiate Women’s Team Cup, which took place online.

One UTRGV team finished second with a total of 7 out of 10 points, Macieja said.

Nine teams competed in the online event, which was officially endorsed by the U.S. Chess Federation.

“There were nine teams, and five of them were from UTRGV,” Macieja said. “This is a completely new initiative, and we knew we wouldn’t have a huge turnout, actually.”

He said his hope for the project is long-term success, and that every event starts small.

“We wanted, already, to add this event to the chess calendar so everybody knows about it,” Macieja said. “And, hopefully, next year there will be feedback from other universities that couldn’t participate this year. … They will be more organized and they will join the event.”

In organizing women’s teams and competitions, UTRGV hopes to help female students obtain scholarships and generate an interest in chess in the local community, he said.

“What we noticed is that there is a big disproportion between male and female students competing at chess at all levels, including the collegiate one,” Macieja said. “At our main event, which was the Pan American Championship, it wasn’t nearly half-half, it was maybe like 90%, or even more, men competing.”

The UTRGV Women’s Chess Team that placed second was made up of two students, including Ana Shamatava, a graduate student from the country of Georgia and a FIDE Women’s Master, a title she earned in 2018.

“I was part of the UTRGV Chess Team for a year and a half already,” Shamatava said. “So, we actually had a women’s chess team like a year ago, but there was no tournaments.”

She said the female players at UTRGV would participate in the open section, and she is glad UTRGV has organized a women’s section.

“It’s pretty good that we were the ones [to do it],” Shamatava said. “It’s kind of like history. Like, after several years, they would say that UTRGV was the one that actually organized it, because there was nothing for the collegiate women in the U.S. before.”

Because the event is new, Shamatava said she was not expecting strong players.

“Honestly, I was expecting, I don’t know, amateur players or something,” she said. “But, like, it was like five rounds and in three of these, I faced … higher-rated players than me.”

Shamatava also said there were only about 20 participants, whereas men’s competitions have hundreds of participants.

“I hope that this event will bring more women [into chess],” she said. “I hope this event will get, like, bigger and bigger later on, and it will for sure. … There is not this, like, history of recruiting girls. … But, yeah, I think because of this event, they will start recruiting more.”

Macieja and Shamatava both look forward to the next women’s team event in January. 

“That might be a bigger event, and it is my dream to make it happen with four women per team,” Macieja said. “We don’t know yet where it will be organized, but it will definitely be on campus, and we invite everyone to watch the event.”

The chess program is always open to new players, and students can email chess@utrgv.edu to learn about joining.

“As more people see the event, the more happy we will be,” Macieja said. “I hope we will help to popularize [chess] even more on campus.”