The University of Texas at Dallas took top college team honors at the 2006 National
Scholastic K-12/Collegiate Chess Championship, held Dec. 8-10 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
The University of Texas at Brownsville finished second in the annual tournament, followed by the University of Central Florida in third place and Ohio State University in fourth.
Long the nation’s premier chess competition for students in kindergarten through 12th grade, the tournament in 2003 was opened for the first time to college players. Since then, UT Dallas has placed first in the event in three out of four years.
The tournament’s top individual score, six wins and one loss, was achieved by Daniel Fernandez from UT Brownsville. The next-highest three scores were recorded by UT Dallas students Alex Chua (5.5-1.5), a freshman finance and statistics major from Keller, Texas, Nelson Lopez (5-2), a freshman majoring in software engineering from Youngsville, N.C., and Sam Copeland (5-2), a senior geography major from Columbia, S.C.
The event, held at the Disney Coronado Springs Resort, was sponsored by the United States Chess Federation.