Chess team looks ahead after winning Blitz world tournament

Sol Garcia | THE RIDER

     Since March 13, the UTRGV Chess Program has been virtually hosting the World University Chess Championship, in which the UTRGV Chess Team won the Blitz tournament. 

The Blitz tournament was initially held online March 13 but after experiencing technical issues, the tournament was postponed to the next day, said Bartek Macieja, UTRGV chess coach and chief tournament director. 

Alicja Sliwicka, an information systems freshman and woman international master, won a bronze medal for her performance in the Blitz tournament, which had 960 competing students from 78 countries. 

Sliwicka did not expect to win.

“I’m really excited because I didn’t expect it,” she said. “I just played. I wasn’t thinking about, ‘It’s a world championship.’”  

When Sliwicka became aware that she was doing well, she started to get nervous. 

“I realized I had three out of three points,” the freshman said. “Then, I realized I can [become] world champion. I started to be stressed, and then I played a bit weaker, but I managed to win third place.”  

Because of her and her teammates’ scores, the team won the team classification for the Blitz tournament, Macieja said. 

“As the team, we played so successfully that in the team classification, we finished first,” he said. 

Last weekend, the UTRGV Chess Team competed in the second tournament. The results from the Rapid tournament are still not available, but Macieja said the team played well. 

“It was, again, very good for us as the team, but there are no official results yet,” he said. 

This was the first time students represented their universities instead of countries in the World Championships, Macieja said. 

“When we made that change, indeed, that was a massive positive change,” he said. “We got about 200 universities registered for the competition.” 

There are two more tournaments in the World University Chess Championship, known as the World Cups. These tournaments will also be playing Blitz and Rapid styles but are reserved for the top four teams from the previous tournaments and will be team-based. 

Because of its first place in the individual-based Blitz tournament, the UTRGV Chess Team will play in the Blitz team event Saturday. 

“We are definitely already preparing,” Macieja said. “Everybody’s motivated, and we also want to succeed in that event.”

The Rapid World Cup will be on Sunday. 

To prepare for its upcoming events, UTRGV’s chess players have been virtually practicing the sport with their coach and competing in online tournaments, such as the Kasparov Chess Foundation University Cup.

Future Team Events 

UTRGV Chess Team A will return to the Final Four of the Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Tournament to defend its title April 3 and 4. 

In 2018 and 2019, the team placed first in the national championship, while last year’s competition was canceled due to COVID-19. 

This year, the competition was held virtually Jan. 4 to 6, where UTRGV Team A qualified for the Final Four. 

“The Final Four is the national championship for every university in the United States,” said Macieja, a grandmaster. “That’s a super prestigious event.” 

Advancing to the Final Four has excited the team, Macieja said. 

“We’re already excited because we qualified to the Final Four, so we already know we are among the top four universities in the nation,” he said. 

Sanan Syugirov, a business administration graduate student and grandmaster, will participate in the Final Four. 

“In [my] next tournament, I want to take my best and play good chess,” Syugirov said. 

On April 11, the UTRGV Chess Program will host the first Women’s Collegiate National Championship, which the UTRGV Women’s Chess Team will compete in. 

“We are super happy it’s going to happen because it’s very important to have those women’s competitions,” Macieja said. “We hope our team will be successful, but definitely our main goal is to organize that event, and we hope in the future, this event will grow.” 

Sliwicka is a member of the women’s team.

“We have a really strong women[’s] team,” she said. “I hope that we’ll be fighting for a medal.”