UTRGV to host collegiate women’s chess tournament: MSA places third at national championships

UTRGV will host the Shining Chess Jewels Top 4 Tournament, its first women’s competition, this month.

“One of the main reasons why we are organizing this event is to promote women’s chess,” said Bartek Macieja, UTRGV’s head chess coach. “There were never women’s official tournaments [or] championships, and we’re trying to change that.”

The event will take place Jan. 21 through the 23 in the Student Union on the Brownsville campus and will be attended by the top four teams in the nation: UTRGV, Texas Tech University, Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri.

The tournament will consist of three matches with three time controls: classical, rapid and blitz.

“The only difference is how much time the students will have to think per move,” Macieja said. “Blitz is very, very fast. You, like, almost have to instantly react. If not, you will just lose.”

Viewers will be able to watch the event remotely.

“We want to take some safety measures,” Macieja said, regarding COVID-19 protocols. “What we will do is we will put lots of cameras inside the playing hall so everybody would be able to see the games online, live.”

For every game, there will be a camera set up showing both players, the chessboard and the time they have left.

“Hopefully, one day we can organize a big event [and] invite the entire university to watch it,” Macieja said. “At [this] point, we prefer to have smaller groups of people.”

Representing UTRGV at the event are Woman FIDE Master Ana Shamatava, Woman Grandmaster Maili-Jade Ouellet and FIDE Master Maria Malicka.

“We’re going to do our best,” Shamatava said Jan. 6 in a phone interview with The Rider. “We’ve had some trainings with our coach. We started in a previous semester, [and the] whole semester we were training with him.”

Before a tournament, the team looks at the participants list to prepare.

“Usually, we like to, like, look at who we are playing, and we are preparing specifically against our opponents,” she said. “Our preparation is our opening preparation. So, how we start the game … it depends on who we are playing against.”

Shamatava said a blitz chess game, which can take just minutes to complete, is entertaining, but that classical is still her favorite time constraint.

“You can have more time so you can show what you know,” Shamatava said. “I have more time to think, and I love thinking.”

The UTRGV Mathematics and Science Academy chess team just completed its fifth semester competing and training with Macieja.

The team traveled to Orlando, Florida, for the 2021 National K-12 Grade Chess Championship Dec. 3-5, finishing third in the competition.

Representing MSA were seniors William McNutt, Adolfo Balderas, Carlos De Leon and Keith Biteng. 

“The tournament was bigger than I expected because there were 74 students representing 32 high schools,” Macieja said. “Finishing third is a very good result. It’s just the third place in the nation so, of course, that’s an extremely big success.”

The points of the three top players of each team were added together at the end of the event, with McNutt scoring 5 points, Balderas scoring 4.5 points, and 4 points each for De Leon and Biteng.

McNutt said he was glad to compete in person again and hopes to see more in-person tournaments in the spring.

“Fall 2021 was the first time I was really able to compete [in person] since 2019,” McNutt said. “Being able to go to Florida was nice, and playing chess in person was so great.”

He said given the circumstances created by COVID-19, everyone’s health is a priority.

“I’m glad that I had the opportunity to play, because COVID, you know,” McNutt said. “Our team was trying really hard to, you know, get first, but … the game played out, and it just happened third, and it’s still great. Top three is not a bad start.”

Traveling with the team was Wilma Smetter, principal of MSA, and Grandmaster Alex Mista, UTRGV’s chess program manager.

“MSA is very, very much supported by the school principal, Dr. Smetter,” Macieja said. “It hardly ever happens in other schools. … I definitely would like to thank Dr. Smetter for that support.”