The UTRGV Chess Team are co-champions after winning 2023 US National Collegiate Rapid Chess Championship
UTRGV Chess Team poses for a group photo at the UTRGV Brownsville campus
On Oct. 29, 59 universities competed in the 2023 US National Collegiate Rapid Chess Championship with UTRGV becoming co-champions with the University of Missouri after both teams tied.
UTRGV’s final score was 27.5 out of 36 possible points. A team’s final score consists of the added points of its top four players participating in nine rounds each.
The fastest time format is called blitz, which lasts up to 10 minutes. The second is rapid, which can last up to 30 minutes. The longest format is classical with each game lasting up to four hours.
The games were played online using the lichess.org platform.
UTRGV Criminal Justice Graduate Student and Chess International Master Tamas Petenyi said he tied for fourth with four other players on UTRGV’s team with a score of 6.5 out of 9, and he was very proud of his performance.
“When we were in time trouble and when it was crunch time, I was able to trick even very strong grandmasters and score a lot of points for the team,” Petenyi said.
He said the team was paying close attention to the University of Missouri as they were catching up to UTRGV, which led to the team becoming very strategic when making risky moves.
“We kept each other updated on the standings,” Petenyi said. “We were letting each other know that we are one point ahead of Missouri or [that] now we’re just a half a point ahead of Missouri in the standings. Missouri caught up with us in the standings, and that’s actually important from a technical point of view.”
He spoke about the team mindset of winning.
“You don’t have to win at any cost,” Petenyi said. “But on the other hand, when you want to catch up to another team and you need to score more points than them in a certain round, that’s useful information so that you can go for a win or risk a little bit more.”
Chess coach Bartek Macieja said the team’s secret to success is they have great students, which leads to great results.
“We were very focused on the event, and some of our students really performed very well,” Macieja said. “They did their best. Tamas is one of them, but also other students did very, very well. So, yes of course for every coach, it’s really a pleasure to have such great students, such a great team.”
The next competition for the UTRGV Chess Team will be the 2024 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, which will take place from Jan. 4 to 7. in the McAllen Convention Center.
This is Timothy Chapman for Vaquero Radio.
