Well played

The UTRGV chess team has won two of three major tournaments this summer.

Chess players Vladimir Belous, Kamil Dragun, Joshua Ruiz and their coach, Bartek Macieja, described their experiences, preparation and the team’s upcoming plans.

Belous and Dragun are Grandmasters, which is the highest rank achievable in chess. Ruiz is an International Master, which is the second-highest title a chess player can attain.

Belous is a sophomore finance major from Russia. Last month, he won the 2017 U.S. Masters tournament in Greensboro, N.C. The competition is a strong, traditionally structured tournament that covers most of the participants’ expenses, which makes it popular.

Before competing, Belous was on vacation in Russia. He had taken a break after two months of vigorous chess training. He said the rest helped him de-stress and contributed to his victory.

“[He] trained a lot in May and June. He won not only the U.S. Masters in August, but also he won five out of eight tournaments throughout May and June,” Macieja said.

For now, Belous plans to focus on school and later on, analyze the mistakes he made in his past games to improve his strategy.

“First, my goal is school,” he said. “Right now, I want to focus on school instead of tournaments, because I have important exams and tests. Then, I will resume the chess training, and work on improving my chess skills.”

Dragun is a freshman finance major from Poland. Earlier this month, he won the 2017 Southwest Open, which took place in the Dallas suburb of Irving. Although he won, he faced cultural differences that challenged him.

“The tournaments here are much different than those in Europe,” he said. “[In the U.S.] they have more rounds that are faster and my opponents were already adapted to this situation.”

In the United States, two games, which last about eight to 10 hours, are played, while in Europe they play one game per day, which lasts about six hours, Macieja said. This often makes U.S. tournaments exhausting to players who are unaccustomed with this structuring.      

The coach assures Dragun that once he gets adjusted to this schedule, he will no longer face this obstacle.

This month, Ruiz, a sophomore computer science major from Colombia, competed in the FIDE World Cup at Tbilisi, Georgia. The World Cup is an important chess tournament in which only the top 128 chess players in the world can compete. He played a match against the second-best chess player in the world, Wesley So of the Philippines. Although he lost, Ruiz and his coach are proud of his momentous achievement.

The chess organization at UTRGV is made up of two segments, the chess club and the chess team. The chess club is open to players of all varying experience. It is also open to the community.