UTRGV Chess Team qualifies for the ‘final four’ for the ninth time
Timothy Chapman
The UTRGV Chess Team has once again qualified for the national championship of collegiate chess final four, also known as the President’s Cup, which will take place in New York in April.
To qualify for the final four, UTRGV first competed in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, which took place in the McAllen convention center.
The team placed fourth behind the other final four teams, The University of Missouri, Texas Tech University and Webster University.
The players that will be representing UTRGV in the final four will be:
Grandmaster Viktor Gazik, junior economics major from Bojnice, Slovakia.
International Master Gleb Dudin, freshman psychology major from Moscow.
International Master Irakli Beradze, computer science graduate student from Tbilisi, Georgia.
International Master Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux, sophomore biomedical sciences major from Montreal.
UTRGV is the three-time champion of the final four, winning in 2018, 2019 and 2021.
Bartek Macieja, UTRGV Chess Coach, said every year, the goal is to win the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. Still, the main objective is to
make sure they’re at least in the top four to qualify for the President’s Cup.
Maciejia said the team’s Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship performance was ‘very successful.’
“There were six rounds and six matches, and we didn’t lose any of them,” he said. “We didn’t win all of them. We made three draws against higher-rated opponents, and we very convincingly won the remaining three matches. So, that was a very good, very solid performance, and that’s what allowed us to qualify.
He said even though UTRGV has qualified for the final four the past consecutive years, it is becoming increasingly more challenging to do so with how strong all the teams are.
Marciejia said he has reflected on the team’s successes and how they went from shocking the world by winning their first championship to now being a serious threat every year.
“If you look for the number of championship titles since 2018 then we are the most successful team in the United States,” he said. “So, I am very proud of my students and I have been smiling since Sunday nonstop.”
Macieja said the star player that allowed the team to qualify for the final four was
Grandmaster Gleb Dudin after he won two out of the three victories for the team.
Dudin said it is a big honor to play for UTRGV and shared his strategy in every match.
“We’re going to have some classes,” he said. “We’re going to be able to know how to build team spirit. Well, we have it right now, but that’s going to be even stronger.”
International Master Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux said the team strategy going into every match, not only the Presidents Cup, is to find a weakness in each opposing team.
“If we really try to look [specifically at] the players on the opposing team and if one of them is lower rated,” Rodrigue-Lemieux said. “We’re really going to try to win on this board and try to be solid on the ones where we are lower rated.”
For more information about the UTRGV chess team, visit utrgv.edu/chess.
This is Timothy Chapman for Vaquero Radio
