The UTRGV Chess Team fell short of qualifying for the Final Four this year after placing fifth in the 2019 Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Tournament held Dec. 27-30 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
For the last three years, the team has made it to the championship tournament, placing first the last two years. However, the back-to-back champions will not be defending their title this year. Both A and B teams did not qualify for finals and placed fifth overall in the Pan American tournament.
Sixty-three teams from across the nation and Toronto, Canada competed in the tournament. UTRGV sent the A and B teams and four teams from the Chess Club at UTRGV to the competition.
Chess Program Manager Alex Mista said the “top four colleges qualify for the tournament and we took the fifth position.”
“So, we were very close and one game decided at the end,” Mista said.
He said the team had “decent” chances to win the last match and drew against a strong team from Webster University, but it was not enough to qualify.
Grandmaster Kamil Dragun, a finance junior, and International Master Irakli Beradze, a computer science freshman, both competed for Team A.
Dragun said he knew after the fifth round that Team A was not going to qualify, but Team B continued fighting in the last round against a strong team and he knew the team didn’t have the best chances.
“But Team B was doing extremely good and they were very, very close to qualifying,” he said. “The competition is growing. Every year, it’s more and more difficult to qualify because there are more teams. They invite more international students. They are just getting better and better.”
Beradze said he wanted to qualify because it was his first year attending the tournament with UTRGV.
Asked how he felt about the loss, he replied, “It’s normal in chess. Sometimes, the tournaments, like that, it’s about luck so you can never predict. OK, we wanted to qualify, but it’s hard to predict and like I said, it’s about luck and pairings. … So, it’s OK. … We will try [again] next year.”
Apart from the team results in the Pan American tournament, there were also individual classifications in which three UTRGV students were awarded with plaques and medals.
“They were the leaders of their teams and thanks to them we had other chances to qualify,” Mista said. “Of course, other players were trying to support, but it’s sports. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You cannot win all the time, unfortunately.”
International Master Yannick Kambrath, a computer engineering senior, received first place in the individual classification. Grandmaster Carlos Hevia, a graduate computer science student, took second and Beradze placed third.
The Chess Team’s next tournament will take place Feb. 1 at the Texas Individual Championship on the UT Dallas campus in the Dallas suburb of Richardson.
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