UT Dallas chess player Karolis Juksta ponders his next move during his third-round match against UT Rio Grande Valley’s Juraj Druska. Juksta earned three draws in his three fourth-board matches at the President’s Cup, which was held at UT Dallas.

The University of Texas at Dallas chess team faced off against the nation’s best collegiate programs March 30 and 31 on the Richardson campus and completed its season with a fourth-place finish at the 2024 President’s Cup.

“While it is a tough result to take, I’m still proud of the team for fighting hard until the bitter end of the last-round match,” said grandmaster Julio Catalino Sadorra BS’13, the Comets’ coach and a former player at UTD. “This loss is being taken to heart by the whole team and will drive us to work harder and grow through this.”

University of Texas at Dallas President Richard C. Benson stands alongside UTD chess players Brian Escalante Ramirez, Koustav Chatterjee, David Brodsky and Karolis Juksta. At right is coach Julio Catalino Sadorra BS’13.

UT Dallas rebounded from a difficult pair of Saturday rounds to earn a 2-2 draw Sunday with UT Rio Grande Valley. UTD’s David Brodsky, a grandmaster, defeated Viktor Gazik in that clash’s top matchup, while Koustav Chatterjee and Karolis Juksta each earned draws. That collective result, however, was not enough for UTD to take third place.

Coached by former UT Dallas player and grandmaster Cristian Chirila BA’14, the University of Missouri won the President’s Cup for the first time, overcoming in-state rival Webster University in the final standings by a half-point.

Despite the President’s Cup loss, the UTD chess team had a number of highlights this season.

In November, Brian Escalante Ramirez earned grandmaster status after his performance at the 2023 U.S. Masters tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In January, UT Dallas qualified for the President’s Cup for a record 19th time by finishing second at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship.

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In March, Chatterjee, Escalante Ramirez and Balaji Daggupati — all grandmasters — tied for first place in the Southwest Collegiate Team Championship, while Gergana Peycheva, Tarini Goyal and Anastasia Paramzina, a woman grandmaster, took home top women’s team honors.

“Overall, the 2023-2024 season was a great success. Earning sole second place at the Pan-Am and qualifying for the President’s Cup indicates that we are at the top echelon of collegiate chess,” said Jim Stallings, director of the UT Dallas chess program. “These accomplishments reflect the hours of hard work and training that Coach Sadorra put in with the team members. A national championship would have been the cherry on top.”

All members of the UTD team will return for the start of next season, but Brodsky is scheduled to graduate in December.

“Bringing everyone back allows me to be optimistic,” Sadorra said. “We have shown resilience time and again, most recently in qualifying for this Final Four after missing out in 2023. In addition to gaining lessons, I’m also finding comfort and seeing a victory in the organization of the event and the enormous response from our community.”

UT Dallas hosted the President’s Cup for the first time since 2009. In the tournament’s final round, Grigory Oparin’s win over Aram Hakobyan proved decisive in Missouri’s victory over Webster, while Mikhail Antipov held on for a draw against Webster’s Benjámin Gledura in the last game to seal a 2½-1½ result for Chirila’s squad. Missouri finished with 8½ standing points to Webster’s 8, with UTRGV earning 4½ points and UT Dallas 3.