Chess Team Gets Solid Workout at Meet

The four visiting grandmasters at the UT Dallas GM Invitational Tournament put up concrete resistance at every turn last week and gave the UT Dallas Chess Team members plenty of practice.

“They proved worthy of their invitations, GM titles and high ratings,” said Jim Stallings, director of the UT Dallas chess program. “We fully expected that, however. In chess, the rating system is statistically very accurate.”

Several UT Dallas team members increased their chess ratings, but none were able to score enough wins to achieve a norm for a new title as the top-seeded visitors prevailed to win in each section.

Visiting grandmasters for the tournament included Babakuli Annakov, a Texan; Julio Becerra from Florida; Sergey Kudrin from Connecticut; and Jessie Kraai from New Mexico.

“It is all right,” said chess coach IM Rade Milovanovic. “Now the team will be ready to defend itself as the current two-time champions of the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championship.”

“They can go take their exams knowing that they will be in good shape for the big tournament,” Milovanovic said.