College Chess / UT Dallas versus U. Belgrade
FIVE TO FIVE UT Dallas defeats University of Belgrade,
ties decade-long Svetozar Gligoric Transatlantic Cup By DR. ALEXEY ROOT, WIM
THE NOVEMBER 6, 2015 OPENING CEREMONY FOR THE 10TH ANNUAL SVETOZAR GLIGORIC Transatlantic Cup match between The University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas), located in the city of Richardson, and the University of Belgrade, located in Serbia, began politely enough at 12:30 p.m. Through video and audio feeds, dignitaries shared pleasant thoughts about chess and their international opponents. The UT Dallas President ad interimHobson Wildenthal stated, “[Chess is] a sport, a real sport, but no traumatic brain injuries associated with it.”
Referring to the 5-4 series score in favor of his team, the University of
Belgrade team captain IM Ivan J. Markovic said, “Thank you for constantly pushing us to our limits.” Grandmaster Ljubomir Ljubojević, a special guest at the University of Belgrade, said the annual match was great but even better would be to have it twice a year and to also develop a “world league of universities.” Ljubojević said that more college chess competi tions would be “healthy for the publicity of chess and of studying.” Then the opening ceremony morphed into a pre-game rally that
sounded and looked like a tailgate for one of those brain-injury sports Wildenthal referenced. The Mayor Pro Tem of Richardson, Mark Solomon, boasted, “We prevail in everything that we do,” adding that today UT Dallas would even the series score to 5-5. Milos Srecko Nedeljkovic, mechanical engineering faculty member at the University of Belgrade, shot back, “Maybe you will, because your first board is from Serbia.” The UT Dallas spectators murmured about trash-talking. The mascot and cheerleaders danced and chanted, which elicited “whoosh” gestures and cheering from the UT Dallas spectators. Nedeljkovic responded that the cheers transmitted from Richardson had fired up his Belgrade team. He suggested a five-minute break, which would begin the games earlier than their scheduled start at 1:00 p.m. The UT Dallas Chess Program Director Jim Stallings confidently replied, “Let’s make the break shorter and start the match.”
32 January 2016 | Chess Life I retreated from the playing hall’s charged atmosphere to the VIP room,
where Grandmasters Nadezhda Kosintseva and Valentin Iotov provided commentary. One of my ED 4358 (“Using Chess in Elementary Schools”; offered online via UT Dallas eLearning) students asked the grandmasters, “Why aren’t you playing?” Kosintseva replied that they were too old. Stallings clarified, “No titled player over 26 years of age can play.” UT Dallas Chess Advisory Board President Rodney Thomas acted as the
VIP room emcee, often asking Iotov about positions displayed on a giant screen from the Internet Chess Club feed, “Is this position pleasant or unpleasant for the UT Dallas player?” Iotov usually answered, “It is too early in the game to tell.” The VIP room grandmasters showed a position from one game, discussed
it, and then rotated through the other games. By the time the grand masters returned to the first game, it had com pletely changed. The time control of game in 40 (with a five-second increment) meant that the games progressed very quickly. It was impossible to follow all 16 games. Sometime after the match ended, the VIP room crowd learned that UT Dallas had won by a score of 9 to 7. Grandmaster Aleksandar Indjic, who played first board for UT Dallas,
and Grandmaster Sahaj Grover, board six, were both enrolled in my ED 4358 course in the fall semester of 2015. Their extra credit assignment was to annotate their games from the match:
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