{"id":8352,"date":"2018-04-20T17:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T17:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8352"},"modified":"2018-04-20T17:00:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T17:00:03","slug":"checkmate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8352","title":{"rendered":"Checkmate!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pictured<\/a>

Pictured at center UTRGV President Guy Bailey, posing with the UTRGV Chess Team, who won the annual President\u2019s Cup national championship, known as the Final Four of College Chess competition, at the Marshall Chess Club in New York City on April 1. The university celebrated the first ever national championship win for the Chess Team on Friday, April 6, at the Brownsville Campus. The celebration will continue with the Chess Team on the Edinburg Campus at noon on Monday, April 9, at the Visitors Center. Photo: Veronica Gaona\/UTRGV<\/p><\/div>\n

by Steven Masso<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS \u2013 <\/strong>The\u00a0UTRGV Chess Team is still riding high from its first national championship win, and to keep the momentum going, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley held a celebration in their honor Friday, April 6.<\/p>\n

Many from the university community attended the event, held at the PlainsCapital Bank El Gran\u00a0Sal\u00f3n in Brownsville, to celebrate the\u00a0team\u2019s\u00a0stunning win over five-year reigning national champs Webster University. The annual President\u2019s Cup tournament \u2013 the Final Four of College Chess competition \u2013 concluded April 1 at the Marshall Chess Club in New York City.<\/p>\n

UTRGV beat\u00a0Webster<\/a>\u00a07.5 to 7.0 after what\u00a0FIDE<\/a>\u00a0arbiter Mike Hoffpauir called \u201cthe strongest Final Four in the history of this tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n

UTRGV President Guy Bailey applauded the team on the victory, and thanked them for a win that brings great pride for the entire UTRGV community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe couldn\u2019t have asked for anyone to do more for this university than you have done,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be thinking of the depth of this accomplishment for years to come, and I don\u2019t expect this to be the last one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coach Grandmaster Bartek Macieja also spoke to the crowd and told them about the difficulty of achieving this feat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe competition was tough. It was the strongest Final Four tournament in history and Webster was considered to be the favorite,\u201d Macieja said. \u201cLet me just add that a team from South Texas had never won the national collegiate chess championship before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The celebration and community support\u00a0had the chess champions beaming. Students, staff and faculty enjoyed refreshments and had a chance to pose for photos with the winners and the coveted President\u2019s Cup during the event.<\/p>\n

Andrey Stukopin, senior mathematics major and grandmaster member of the Chess Team, said he appreciated the encouragement the team received from the student body along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to thank our fellow students, whom we have the privilege to represent, for your ongoing support and friendship, which makes us all feel like this is our home away from home,\u201d Stukopin said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Douglas Stoves, associate dean for Student Rights and Responsibilities and who also oversees the chess program, said he is extremely proud of the team and how they represented UTRGV.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe national championship of chess now runs through the Rio Grande Valley,\u201d said Stoves, who accompanied the team to New York for the tournament.<\/p>\n

The celebration will continue with the Chess Team on the Edinburg Campus, noon Monday, April 9, at the Visitors Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Steven Masso BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS \u2013 The\u00a0UTRGV Chess Team is still riding high from its first national championship win, and to keep the momentum going, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley held a celebration in their honor Friday, April 6. Many from the university community attended the event, held at the PlainsCapital Bank El […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8353,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions\/8353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}