Chess team makes its move

UTRGV players win three championships

Sol Garcia | THE RIDER

Despite transitioning to online competitions, the UTRGV Chess Team continues to score on the board with two students placing in the U.S. Rapid and Blitz Championships on Sept. 26 and 27.

Alicja Sliwicka, a UTRGV informational systems freshman and woman international master, placed first in the U.S. Collegiate Women’s Blitz Championship.

Competing online made Sliwicka feel less nervous than if she were playing face-to-face.

“My opponent didn’t see me, and I didn’t … see my opponents, so I could have been more aggressive,” she said. “I only see my board, and I kind of focus on the online board and other[s] don’t affect me.” 

Asked how she felt after the event, Sliwicka replied, “I was really happy, and I wanted to learn more and to add even more success.” 

This was the first time there was a separate championship for the best female player, UTRGV Chess coach Bartek Macieja said.

“It was the first event ever, the first women’s championship ever,” Macieja said. “[Sliwicka will always be] in the history of the U.S. collegiate chess. Everybody would be checking who was the first one to win the championship and that would be a UTRGV student.” 

Sliwicka’s goal is to become a grandmaster soon, needing only one more norm for the highest title in chess. 

“I have two norms for this title and I need one more,” she said. 

Vladimir Fedoseev, a UTRGV marketing freshman and grandmaster, won in both the Rapid and Blitz championships. 

Macieja said the Blitz championship offers less time for players to make moves compared to Rapid.

“Basically, [Fedoseev] proved that, ‘No matter how much time you give me to think anyway, I’m [the] best,’” he said. 

Fedoseev said it is not easy to play against grandmasters, so he finds it important to play as best as he can, like he did in September. 

“I played as professional as I can and the most important problem was about accuracy, and my accuracy was on a really high level for both events,” he said. 

This year, the championships had over 150 players, three times more than previous years. Fedoseev said he believes this is because chess is easily adaptable to online play. 

“You can play from your own places,” he said. “This is surely better to have a big amount of players.” 

Fedoseev competed from his home in Russia, while Sliwicka competed from her home in Poland.

As a whole, the team placed second in both championships. 

“Look how ambitious students we are,” Macieja said. “Being second in the nation is not enough for UTRGV. We want to be the first one.” 

To prepare for the championships, players practiced with Macieja online about three hours a week, while additionally practicing on their own.  

“Everybody is super punctual; everybody’s engaged [in] whatever I asked them to do,” the chess coach said. “If I assign some homework, everybody works, tries to solve it [and] send me [the] solutions. Sometimes, I send some feedback, then they redo the homework [and] try to find a different solution.”  

On Oct. 17 and 18, the team placed second and third in the Texas Collegiate Super Finals, with Texas Tech University placing first, according to UTRGV Chess Team’s Facebook page.

“We lost the match against Texas Tech University, so they have the best team,” Macieja said. “We have the second best in Texas.”

On Oct. 24, the UTRGV Chess Program organized the first collegiate chess event for women, competing against Texas Tech University. Four female students from each university competed in the event, with Texas Tech University winning, according to the Facebook page.

The UTRGV Chess Team had previously won the Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship in 2018 and 2019. Due to COVID-19, this year’s in-person championship was canceled, but it will most likely return online and if the team advances to the final four, the competition will be held around April, Macieja said. 

“Nobody really believed we could defend the championship in 2019, but that’s what happened,” he said. “Why not show people that UTRGV can win it three times?”