Chess Team Preps For Final Four

Despite Harvard’s reputation as a haven for braininess, the Harvard chess team is the underdog at the ‘Final Four’ national collegiate chess tournament in Miami this weekend.

Harvard is seated fourth in the competition against Stanford University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).

“Most people expect us to finish dead last,” said team member Marc R. Esserman ’05. “But it’s good to be the underdog.”

Harvard Chess Club Vice President Yue Wu ’02 agreed.

“We expect to place last, but one of our players has been in great form and we have a good chance to do well,” he said.

Still, UMBC and UTD are the heavy favorites to win this year’s tournament. At last year’s inaugural tournament, UTD beat UMBC by one-half of one point.

“I think we will dominate Harvard and Stanford. It will be a toss-up who wins between UTD and UMBC,” said Alan T. Sherman, director of the chess program at UMBC.

“The decided favorites are UTD and UMBC. Both Harvard and Stanford have very good teams, but if you look at the rankings of the players, they just aren’t at the same level,” said Tim Redman, director of the chess program at UTD.

According to Wu, Harvard will compete with a significant handicap relative to UMBC and UTD.

“[The top two schools] outrate us by an average of 300 points on each board,” Wu said, referring to the four chess games per round, each lasting up to six hours.

“Most of the players on the team have not been able to sit down and study chess. We have not had the time to play as they have,” he said.

The members of the UMBC and UTD teams credit their success to the schools’ chess scholarships and recruiting.

Of the six members on each of the UMBC and UTD teams, each qualified for a chess-related scholarship. Both schools recruit international chess stars.

According to Esserman, some members of Harvard’s team were recruited by the chess programs at UMBC and UTD.

UMBC works hard to promote the chess team, especially as the school does not have a football team, said Stephen D. McGregor, UMBC spokesperson.

“They recruit for chess players, not football players. They hoard the best chess players in the nation. They have a pep rally with cheerleaders to send them off,” Esserman said.

The Harvard team, comprised of both undergraduates and graduate students, qualified for this weekend’s tournament held at the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame by finishing fourth at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship in Providence, R.I. in December.

Harvard lost to Stanford at the tournament.

Esserman expects good publicity for the event because it nearly coincides with the conclusion of the NCAA Basketball Tournament’s Final Four.

The chess tournament was featured earlier this week on National Public Radio’s “The Connection.”