The SPICE National Championship Records

The official records of SPICE National Championship Teams (3 wins - 3 ties - 0 loss at TTU and 15 wins - 0 tie - 0 loss at Webster).

We did not lose any match in 7 straight Final Four National Championships!

SPICE at TTU - 2011 (2 W - 1 T - 0 L) 7-5 – National Champions

W 2.5 - 1.5 vs UTB
T 2 - 2 vs UTD
W 2.5 - 1.5 vs UMBC

GM Anatoly Bykhovsky - GM Davorin Kuljasevic - IM Itsvan Sipos - GM Andre Diamant (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar - Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong)

SPICE at TTU - 2012 (1 W - 2 T - 0 L) 8-4 – National Champions

T 2 - 2 vs UMBC
W 4 - 0 vs NYU
T 2 - 2 vs UTD

GM Georg Meier - GM Elshan Moradiabadi - GM Anatoly Bykhovsky - GM Andre Diamant - GM Denes Boros - IM Vitaly Neimer (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar - Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong)

SPICE at Webster - 2013 (3 W - 0 T - 0 L) 9.5-2.5 – National Champions

W 4 - 0 vs U of IL
W 2.5 - 1.5 vs UMBC
W 3 - 1 vs UTD

GM Georg Meier - GM Wesley So - GM Ray Robson - GM Fidel Corrales - GM Manuel Leon Hoyos - GM Anatoly Bykhovsky (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar - Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong)

SPICE at Webster - 2014 (3 W - 0 T - 0 L) 9.5-2.5 – National Champions

W 4 - 0 vs U of IL
W 2.5 - 1.5 vs UMBC
W 3 - 1 vs TTUGM Le Quang Liem - GM Georg Meier - GM Wesley So - GM Ray Robson - GM Fidel Corrales - GM Anatoly Bykhovsky (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar - Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong)

SPICE at Webster - 2015 (3 W - 0 T - 0 L) 10-2 – National ChampionsW 3.5 - 0.5 vs UMBC
W 3.5 - 0.5 vs UTD
W 3 - 1 vs TTUGM Le Quang Liem - GM Ray Robson - GM Illia Nyzhnyk - GM Vasif Durarbayli - GM Fidel Corrales - GM Andre Diamant (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar - Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong)



SPICE at Webster – 2016 (3 W – 0 T – 0 L) 8.5-3.5 – National Champions
W 3.5 – 0.5 vs Columbia
W 2.5 – 1.5 vs UT RGV
W 2.5 – 1.5 vs TTU
GM Le Quang Liem – GM Illia Nyzhnyk – GM Aleksandr Shimanov – GM Ray Robson – GM Vasif Durarbayli – GM Fidel Corrales Jimenez (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar – Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong)



SPICE at Webster – 2017 (3 W – 0 T – 0 L) 8.0-4.0 – National Champions
W 3.0 – 1.0 vs TTU
W 2.5 – 1.5 vs UTD
W 2.5 – 1.5 vs SLU
GM Le Quang Liem – GM Illia Nyzhnyk – GM Ray Robson – GM Aleksandr Shimanov – GM Vasif Durarbayli – GM Priyadarshan Kannappan (Head Coach: GM Susan Polgar – Coach/Chief Strategist: FM Paul Truong – Assistants: GMs Manuel Leon Hoyos and Ashwin Jayaram)

The right move

CHECKMATE, TEXAS TECH
Knight Raiders lose chess coach, entire team of grandmaster competitors
By John Walters Monday, June 4, 2012

Legendary chess players are defined by the brilliance of their moves.

Susan Polgar, a grandmaster who also happened to be the chess coach at Texas Tech, found herself in a budget stalemate last winter with the school’s administration. Polgar’s Knight Raiders would soon win their second consecutive national championship, but the team’s funding was about to take a severe cut.

Polgar did not despair. A Hungarian native who at the age of 15 had become the top-ranked female player in the world, Polgar won in two easy moves: She took a job at Webster University in St. Louis, and her entire team transferred there to be with her.

“We really loved Texas Tech and we wanted to stay,” said Polgar, who launched the Texas Tech program in 2007, “but we had an anonymous donor and the funding was running out. It was a very unfortunate situation.”

Webster, a Division III school, has never won a national championship in any sport. In fact, the Gorlocks have never had a chess team. Now, thanks to a provost, Julian Schuster, who like Polgar hails from Europe and is ardent about chess, Webster is home to the prohibitive favorites to win next spring’s President’s Cup, the de facto collegiate chess national championship.

“We have been known as a school with very smart but not very successful athletes,” said Schuster, who was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia. “Now we will be the top chess team in the U.S.A.”

Chess is not an NCAA sport. If it were, Polgar would be allowed to change jobs but none of her “athletes” would be able to follow her without sitting out at least one year. Her top player, Georg Meier of Germany, would be ineligible because he has already played chess professionally as a member of Baden-Baden — “the New York Yankees of chess,” according to Polgar’s husband, Paul Truong, who doubles as the team’s manager.

“We have eight grandmasters on our roster,” said Truong. “No other school has ever had more than four. It’s an All-Star cast, like having Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant on the same team.”

Although chess is not an NCAA sport, sometimes it feels like one. Incoming freshman Ray Robson, the lone American on the roster, was reportedly offered a full scholarship to another chess powerhouse, the University of Texas-Dallas, when he was 12. Robson, from Florida, later became the youngest American grandmaster in history at age 14. When Polgar was introduced at a press conference last week, Robson played an opponent blindfolded.

Polgar, arguably the greatest female player of the past-quarter century, likes to put her players in end-game situations. Last summer she encountered one of her own.

An anonymous donor had helped launch the Texas Tech program with a five-year, $320,000 grant. That funding, which helped finance scholarships for a roster that includes players from Azerbaijan, Iran and Israel, was ending. Tech was dragging its feet re-enlisting that benefactor, or finding a new one.

“Part of the problem is that in Texas nothing is more important than football,” said Truong.

A mutual friend, a grandmaster by the name of Babakuli Annakov who lives in Dallas, put Polgar in touch with Schuster. The queen of college chess insisted on a long-term contract and a budget that would guarantee her players either full merit-based scholarships or close to it. Schuster happily assented. Polgar and Truong bristle at the idea of their prodigies being pawns in the process.

“The reason we left Texas Tech,” said Truong, who described his wife’s salary increase as moderate, “was to guarantee that our players would be able to graduate."

“Without the scholarship I would not be able to afford school in the United States,” said Anatoly Bykhovsky, a junior from Israel who is a grandmaster.

For what it’s worth, while Texas Tech may be years away from returning to prominence in chess, the school still boasts national champions in moot court and, no kidding, meat judging.

St. Louis, meanwhile, has become the gateway to American chess in the past half decade. Thanks in no small measure to a local philanthropist named Rex Sinquefield, the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, a 6,000-square foot shrine to the game, was founded in 2007. Three years later, Hikaru Nakamura, the top-ranked American player, moved to town. Last September, the World Chess Hall of Fame relocated there.

And now Susan Polgar and college chess’ answer to the Dream Team have arrived.

“In chess you only make two types of moves,” said Schuster, the Webster provost. “The right move and the wrong move. We made the right move.”

Source: http://www.thedaily.com

Webster University adding chess excellence

Webster University adding chess excellence

May 2, 2012

ST. LOUIS – Susan Polgar introduced the possibility of change shortly after her chess team's achievement, the choice either to stay or leave each player's decision alone.

On Dec. 30, the grandmaster and Texas Tech coach addressed her 18-member squad in a conference room at a hotel in Fort Worth, Texas. It was minutes after they had competed at the Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Championships and clinched their third consecutive appearance in the college chess Final Four.

An opportunity was available. Webster University, a small private school in suburban St. Louis, had offered Polgar a position to start a chess program. Scholarship funding for her team at Texas Tech was limited, so in recent months she had explored options elsewhere.

During the meeting at the hotel, Polgar stressed the importance of self-evaluation. She told her students there was a chance to create at Webster, but she also advised them to choose what was best for their own futures. As in preparation for a chess game, she told her players to approach the options with logic before making a decision.

More than four months later, Polgar and nine students who were present in that room – including each member of the two-time defending national champion Division I team – are preparing for their transition to St. Louis. With it, they will face challenges involved with change as they attempt to build a program together. With it, they will face opportunity as they grow through shared anticipation and struggle.

Polgar likes to say that change is the only constant in life. Soon, she and the rest of her team will discover what their new chapter will teach them.

"Sometimes, change is good," Polgar, who plans to move to St. Louis in early June, told FOXSports.com. "Sometimes, life creates circumstances that you have to be proactive and look for the change and just go with it. … Circumstances change, and you have to be ready to adapt to the changes. As long as the changes are not going in a negative direction – it's at least comparable or better – there's no reason to feel bad about it. You have to accept it as part of life."

Change has been part of Polgar's life, and it has made her one of the world's most recognized figures in chess. She was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, and she quickly became one of the game's rising stars. At age 12, she earned her first world title by claiming the World Chess Championship for girls under 16. At age 15, she became the world's top-rated female player. And at age 16, she became the first woman to qualify for the World Chess Championship.

Polgar, 43, moved to New York City in 1994, and she continued to build her reputation within the game. In 2003, the United States Chess Federation named her "Grandmaster of the Year," the first woman to receive the honor. And in 2007, Texas Tech hired her to lead a chess program within a region more known for its passions of oil and football.

With time, though, Texas Tech became a power under her guidance. Her Division I team captured its second consecutive national championship in early April in suburban Washington, D.C., making Polgar the first woman to lead a men's Division I team to consecutive titles.

By that point, though, Polgar knew more change would come for her and her squad. The previous year, shortly after Texas Tech had claimed its first national championship, Polgar had hoped the university would promise more funding for scholarships for her students, some of whom she had recruited from countries such as Brazil, Israel and Azerbaijan. The program had survived with the help of a private donor, but assistance was running out.

As months passed, little changed with the situation. She grew less optimistic that they money would come. So early last summer, Polgar began looking. She spoke to about six schools, with Webster being the last one, about making a switch.

"We love Texas Tech, and we appreciate the opportunity the university gave us here," Polgar said. "We just feel they weren't able to commit timely for the scholarships for our students. I personally thought at least a moral obligation to my students, whom I recruited personally from all around the world. … It seemed about a year ago, it clearly seemed the funding was not there toward their scholarships."

Meanwhile, Julian Schuster, Webster's provost and senior vice president, sensed an opportunity. Last summer, he learned through a grandmaster in Texas that Polgar was considering a move. A former chess player, Schuster became interested in the game's value as a tool to sharpen students' critical and creative thinking skills. He wanted to start a program at Webster.

Late last year, Schuster approached Polgar with an offer to make the 47-acre campus in Webster Groves, Mo., her new home. Her background had intrigued him: He considered her an "educated chess player" and "arguably one of the strongest female players in the history of the game." He promised ample funding for her students, an environment within an urban setting with a strong chess culture and a global reach with international campuses in countries such as Austria, China, Thailand, Switzerland, Great Britain and the Netherlands.

Polgar was pleased with the pitch presented by Webster leadership. By January, an agreement was made: She would lead the school's program.

"Change is never easy," Schuster said. "You go from known to unknown. You know with the unknown there is always an anxiety. … The biggest challenge is with great power comes great possibility. They have repeated as champions in the last two years. We at Webster would expect that they continue the winning streak. It is not easy being first. … The challenge is to continue on the trajectory of success."

There also is a challenge knowing what will be left behind at Texas Tech. Polgar and Paul Truong, an assistant coach, have bittersweet feelings about the move. They are eager for the opportunity at Webster.

But they also realize they created a recognized program in west Texas that made an impact through outreach chess events and by hosting numerous local, regional and national competitions. New routines must be made with their move to St. Louis.

But they also understand change presents a chance for growth. Polgar views the transition as no different than any other life cycle: Visions, like the people who carry them, mature with time. And on occasion, a move is necessary to allow a dream to reach its full potential.

"We can adapt to this very easily, because we are all chess players," Truong said. "As chess players, you have to adapt to constant changes. It doesn't matter how much preparation you put into a game – you can guess your opponent will play a certain opening or prepare something for you and you prepare something to counter that – but when you get to the board, things can change rapidly.

"There are big surprises. You don't have time to go back to the drawing board – you have to make decisions on the board instantly. … For chess players, it's like, OK, you see a problem in front of you, and you have to find a solution."

Polgar anticipates some time will be required to grow comfortable at Webster. There will be small adjustments, like finding new friends and new doctors and even a new hairdresser. But there will be a larger transition as well: She will work to maintain the success her program enjoyed at Texas Tech, all while shaping a new legacy.

After all, anticipation will follow her to the Midwest. The New York Times compared her move to a school previously without basketball hiring Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Truong has likened the team's depth to having eight Tom Bradys or Michael Jordans on the roster. Polgar will work to meet a standard of her own creation, and observers will anticipate results fast.

But in the process, she will receive help from students who trust her. They value their connection. The Webster announcement surprised some, but others were eager to join what U.S. News & World Report has ranked as a Tier 1 institution.

Both Polgar and her team – she estimates she will have at least 14 players when most students report to campus in mid-August – will live the transition together. Change has taught them to be flexible. Change has taught them to move forward with an open mind.

"It wasn't a tough decision, exactly," said grandmaster Anatoly Bykhovsky, a sophomore from Israel who will join Polgar at Webster this fall. "I just love my coach, and it was pretty much my decision. It didn't take me too long."

Source: http://www.foxsportsmidwest.com

Coach wins national title, takes entire team to new school

Coach wins national title, takes entire team to new school
By Douglas Stanglin, USA TODAY
Apr 06, 2012

Some call it brazen, others unprecedented, but it is certainly shocking: A Texas coach resigns and takes the entire team to another school within hours of winning a Final Four national championship.

But it's a done deal: Texas Tech chess coach Susan Polgar is moving her all-star squad of seven chess grandmasters to private Webster University in suburban St. Louis, home to the World Chess Hall of Fame and the U.S. national championships, the Associated Press reports.

"The program grew rapidly, and Texas Tech wasn't ready to grow with the speed of the program," says Polgar, who founded the program there in 2007. "St. Louis today is the center of chess in America. It just seemed like a perfect fit."

Her players will also have access to the swanky new Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, a 6,000-square-foot shrine to the game that was bankrolled by local businessmen.

Fresh off her second straight national championship, Polgar, a home-schooled prodigy from Budapest who was the world's top female player by the time she was 15, tells the university's newspaper, the Daily Toreador, that she would love to have stayed at Tech, but with funds drying up,"the welfare of my students comes first."

The Tech students transferring to Webster in the fall will receive scholarships. At Tech, the program had a $30,000 pot for the entire team, while some top chess schools can offer individual students that much, the AP reports.

Source: USA Today

That's checkmate, Red Raiders

That's checkmate, Red Raiders
Originally published April 7, 2012 at 3:36 PM
Page modified April 7, 2012 at 4:46 PM
Seattle Times

Eat your heart out, SEC! Texas Tech won a repeat national championship — and then the coach abruptly announced that she and her entire...

Eat your heart out, SEC!

Texas Tech won a repeat national championship — and then the coach abruptly announced that she and her entire team are transferring their talents to Webster University in suburban St. Louis.

"The program grew rapidly," coach Susan Polgar told the Daily Toreador, Tech's student newspaper, "and Texas Tech wasn't ready to grow with the speed of the program."

And the sport, you ask?

Chess.

Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com

College Chess Champions Switch Teams

College Chess Champions Switch Teams
By William Browning, Yahoo!
Contributor Network
1 hour, 44 minutes ago

College chess has just as much drama and strife in the world of athletics as football and basketball. Evidence of this can be found at Webster University in St. Louis. ESPN reports Susan Polgar, a legendary chess grandmaster and coach at Texas Tech, left her school and went to Webster.

She's taking her entire team of seven grandmasters with her because Texas Tech was unable to fund her program.

The move had been in the works since February, according to Webster's chess club blog. The move is a huge blow to Tech's chess club, as the program won its second straight President's Cup at the Final Four of Chess in Herndon, Va., held March 31 to April 1. Tech defeated New York University, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and the University of Texas at Dallas.

Polgar's entire squad will get individual scholarships to Webster. Members of the chess team are highly recruited by employers for critical thinking skills. Cloud Analytics offered winners of the Final Four of Chess summer internships in Washington, D.C.

Imagine taking John Calipari and his entire coaching staff along with the players and recruits and moving them from the University of Kentucky to Louisville. That's essentially what happened when Polgar went to greener pastures at Webster. The suburban St. Louis university wasn't the only suitor for her services. When Texas Tech decided to cut funding, Polgar was heavily recruited.

Chess is highly competitive in collegiate circles. Only around 30 teams field serious enough clubs to offer scholarships. There are open tournaments all the time. Many colleges have chess clubs without scholarships that compete in local, regional and national open tournaments.

The United States Chess Federation oversees other official tournaments. The next national tournament is the National High School Championship to be held April 13 to April 15 in Minneapolis, Minn. Age levels from elementary age to seniors have their own tournaments throughout the year.

Chess is believed to have originated in India as the game "chatarung" from 600 to 1000 CE. Rules changes in Europe changed Medieval chess to the strategy game it is today with the queen and bishop becoming stronger pieces.

In the United States, the first national championship was held in 1845. The U.S. Chess Federation was formed in 1939. The organization's popularity doubled in the 1970s, thanks to legend Bobby Fischer's prominence as the world champion.

Chess is enjoyed seriously by over 100,000 people in the United States, according to Chess Life's ratings database.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com

Legendary coach heads to another school and takes entire team

A bold move in the chess world: Legendary coach heads to another school and takes entire team
By Alan Scher Zagier
Washington Post
Associated Press / April 5, 2012

COLUMBIA, Mo.—It was one of the most brazen moves in the chess world since the Najdorf Sicilian Defense, perhaps even the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit.

Fresh off her second straight national championship, the legendary chess coach at Texas Tech is jumping to another school and taking all the top members of the team with her. No one has ever seen anything like it in intercollegiate competition, not even among powerhouse basketball and football teams that are worth many millions of dollars.

Similar deals are not uncommon in academia, where a star professor recruited by another school may bring along a cadre of researchers, lab assistants and post-docs. But in the competitive realm, the practice is virtually unheard of.

"There's no equivalent," said Mike Hoffpauir, a Virginia consultant who helped organize the recent President's Cup chess tournament, the game's version of the Final Four, which was won by Texas Tech. "If the coach from Kentucky gets hired by UCLA this summer, the whole team's not going to go with him."

Susan Polgar, a home-schooled prodigy from Budapest and the world's top female player by the time she was 15, is taking her champions to private Webster University in suburban St. Louis, a city that is already home to the World Chess Hall of Fame and the U.S. national championships.

It also has a swanky new chess club and scholastic center bankrolled by a billionaire, the kind of place where students can immerse themselves in chess arcana, learning moves like the King's Indian Defense and others with mysterious names steeped in the game's 1,500-year history.

Webster lured the team with the promise of a greater financial investment.

"The program grew rapidly, and Texas Tech wasn't ready to grow with the speed of the program," said the coach, who founded the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence, known as SPICE, in 2007. "St. Louis today is the center of chess in America. It just seemed like a perfect fit."

The Webster program will be based on campus, but its top players will clearly spend plenty of time at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, a 6,000-square-foot shrine to the game where the resident rock star is Hikaru Nakamura, the top-ranked U.S. player and No. 6 in the world. He, too, is a recent transplant to St. Louis. The club was bankrolled by businessman Rex Sinquefield, a retired financial executive and avid chess player who is also active in Missouri politics.

The Knight Raiders of Lubbock won their second straight President's Cup in Herndon, Va., last weekend, defeating chess powerhouses New York University, the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the University of Texas at Dallas.

There are no hard feelings in Lubbock, said Texas Tech spokesman Chris Cook. The school plans to continue its chess program despite the departure of Polgar and her all-star squad of seven chess grandmasters, the game's highest competitive ranking.

"What these kids have done in the short time they've been here is amazing," Cook said. "They've put us in some niches where we haven't been before. They've put us in some countries where we haven't been before."

The championship chess team has also helped elevate the Texas Tech brand, Cook said -- though chess matches draw far less attention than Tech football under former coach Mike Leach or Red Raider basketball under the irascible Bobby Knight.

Polgar said she was recruited by a half-dozen top programs, though she declined to identify her unsuccessful suitors. In the end, she chose Webster, a former Catholic women's college in a leafy suburb that now has more than 100 campuses worldwide, including many near U.S. military bases, as well as residential programs in Vienna, Geneva and China.

Provost Julian Schuster, a native of the former Yugoslavia who calls himself "a very strong fan and casual player," helped broker the deal after learning of Polgar's interest through mutual friends. He envisions a broader academic focus revolving around chess, espousing a "dream of connecting chess as not only a game but as a didactic tool, to apply in a learning setting."

Neither Polgar nor Schuster would discuss the specifics of the financial commitment to attract the program.

The Texas Tech students transferring to Webster in the fall will receive scholarships. At Tech, the program had a $30,000 pot for the entire team, but Polgar noted that some top chess schools award individual students that amount.

The team members hail from around the world: Germany, Brazil, Iran, Hungary, Israel and Azerbaijan. In interviews, several said they had no qualms about the surprise relocation. Such is their faith in Polgar, who in 2005 set a Guinness World Record by playing 326 simultaneous games -- and winning 309 of those matches, with 14 draws and just three losses. That feat also gave her another world record, with 1,131 consecutive games played.

"It was a very easy decision," said Georg Meier, a freshman from Trier, Germany. "When the program decided to move to St. Louis, I didn't have to think twice."

About 30 schools nationwide have competitive chess teams, from Yale and Princeton to Miami-Dade College and the University of West Indies. And while college chess remains a niche activity, Polgar's unprecedented move has given the game a brief moment in the spotlight.

Hoffpauir's consulting firm of Booz Allen Hamilton heavily recruits elite chess players for their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Some Wall Street firms do the same.

"These players that were here were the equivalent of Kansas and Kentucky, athletes at the top of their game," Hoffpauir said.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com

Back to back Final Four champs

Texas Tech Repeats at Final Four of College Chess
By Jamaal Abdul-Alim
April 3, 2012

Herndon, Va. – Under any other circumstances, GM Andrew Diamant of Texas Tech would have given up in a lost position such as the one he found himself playing against GM Conrad Holt of UT Dallas here over the weekend.

But when Diamant learned that the only way the Texas Tech Knight Raiders could defend their title as America’s top college chess team was to win or draw, Diamant decided to fight it out for what proved to be an exciting duel that lasted until only seconds remained on both players’ clocks.

“In a normal game, I would resign because my position was terrible,” Diamant said of his Round 3 game against Holt in a three-round tournament known as the Final Four of Chess.

“But when I figured out it was the last game to decide who will be the champion, I knew the pressure was on him, not only me,” Diamant said.

Their hands literally shook as they made their final moves. Diamant’s decision to battle it out under pressure ultimately paid off for Texas Tech, the only team to score a victory against Holt, who was the only player to enter Round 3 with 2 points.

“Sometimes what happens is I start to blunder almost every move,” explained Holt, who had what he described as a “totally winning position” against Diamant.

“I made many mistakes and eventually it’s a draw,” said Holt -- who counted 36. …. Rb2, enabling Diamant to follow with 37. Rxe6 -- as his first in a series of mistakes.

The draw – along with several other factors – ultimately enabled the Red Raiders to emerge with 8 points as the 2012 winners of the President’s Cup, which is awarded to the victor of the Final Four of Chess.

UMBC and UT Dallas, both longstanding contenders in the Final Four, each tied for second with 7.5 points, and NYU came in fourth.

“I’m very proud of my team and it’s a result of hard work throughout the year, the effort that we’ve done,” Texas Tech Head Coach GM Susan Polgar said of her team’s successful defense of her teams back-to-back championships.

“It’s very fulfilling, of course,” said Polgar, who is moving her chess program, known as the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence, or SPICE, to Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, this fall.

The President’s Cup, however, will remain at Texas Tech until whichever team wins it next.

As happened last year, Texas Tech’s victory hinged on another last-round game, this time between NM Evan Rosenberg of NYU and IM Sasha Kaplan of UMBC.

Observers noted that in many ways, the tournament was decided by a team’s ability to sweep NYU, whose collective strength, at least based on ratings and titles, did not rival that of the three other teams.

Consider, for instance, that NYU was the only team that made it to the Final Four with only one IM and without any GMs, while the other teams were able to put GMs on just about every board.

Still, UMBC and UT Dallas yielded a draw each to NYU while Texas Tech swept NYU.

“When Texas Tech swept NYU and the others couldn’t, that was the delta,” said Mark Herman, executive vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, a strategy and technology consulting firm that hosted and sponsored the Final Four of Chess, using “delta” as a mathematical term for difference.

As it did last year, Booz Allen Hamilton hosted the Final Four not only to support and advance the game of chess, but rather to recruit talent from among the best players in the world of collegiate chess.

Indeed, the firm extended an invitation to members of all four teams to explore internship opportunities with Booz Allen Hamilton – a significant development given the fact that last year the firm only offered internships to members of the team that won the Final Four.

Several players indicated a serious interest in taking the firm up on its offer.

Among them was IM Vitaly Neimer, 24, a freshman majoring in finance at Texas Tech. Neimer noted the similarities between the mathematical and analytical skills used in the game of chess and those required in finance, one of the areas in which Booz Allen Hamilton offers services.

“Many times in a game, you need to change the plan of the game,” Neimer said. “Also in finance, you need to change how you react.”

Herman, the Booz Allen Hamilton executive, said the nation’s top collegiate chess players represent a rich pool of talent.

“I’ve got a room full of the best critical thinkers that you’re going to find anywhere,” Herman said. “Why wouldn’t I want to recruit them?”

Jamaal Abdul-Alim will also be writing an article for Chess Life Magazine on the Final Four.

www.uschess.org

Webster University has a surprise of its own

College Chess Upheaval
Part One
Steve Goldberg
ChessCafe.com

For years, the collegiate chess world was dominated by two schools – the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Texas at Dallas. In recent years, Texas Tech (current collegiate champ) and the University of Texas at Brownsville have also become major national players. However, suddenly things are not so clear. Read more below, in Part One of our report on "College Chess Upheaval."

Texas Tech surprises the collegiate chess world

Texas Tech University upset the collegiate status quo in April 2011 by winning the "Final Four of Chess," ahead of annual superpowers University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

Texas Tech may yet win again in 2012, as they compete in another Final Four, against UTD, UMBC, and surprisingly, New York University for the 2012 collegiate title.

But the future is quite cloudy for the Texas Tech team, in light of the recent news that coach Susan Polgar and ten of her top players are all leaving Texas Tech. GM Polgar and the players, comprised of eight GMs and two IMs, are coming to Webster University in suburban St. Louis.

Webster University has a surprise of its own

Suddenly, Webster University, which previously had no organized chess activity on campus, will have one of the nation's strongest teams, if not the top-ranked team in the country.

As Dylan McClain wrote in the New York Times (Feb. 14, 2012), "Imagine if a university without a basketball program recruited Mike Krzyzewski, the legendary coach at Duke University, and not only managed to hire him but also persuaded most of his team to switch with him. In essence, that is what Webster University in St. Louis has done by hiring Susan Polgar, the head of the Texas Tech chess program."

While it has not been explicitly stated why Polgar is leaving Texas Tech, it appears that funding for the chess program is at the heart of the matter. As a public university, Texas Tech has constraints on how much money it can devote to the many extracurricular programs on campus, and the presumption is that they simply weren't able to provide the level of funding necessary to maintain the program and recruit student players at the level Polgar desired.

Polgar declined to comment on the impending move at this time. But Dr. Julian Schuster, provost and senior vice president (chief academic and chief operating officer) of Webster University, was very generous with his time. While most of the chess world is likely unfamiliar with Dr. Schuster, I believe that people will find him to be a very engaging and dynamic individual, an excellent advocate for collegiate chess.

He was a chess fan before he was an educator

Asked to describe how Susan Polgar and her team found their way to Webster University, Schuster underscored his own love for chess.

"There is an objective story, and there is a personal component of that story," he began. "The personal component of that story is that I grew up in the former Yugoslavia, where chess was a powerful game. Each and every one of us grew up around chess. By doing that, you learn that chess is more than a game. Chess is a way of thinking; it has a direct application to the decision-making process. When I became an educator in my mature life, I still felt the connection because I was playing. I can say I'm a casual player. I would describe myself as having an understanding of chess. A number of my friends are grandmasters; I am a friend of Mr. Gligoric.

"For me, combining chess and education was always something that I was interested in. I was trying to do that in my previous academic appointments, but there is always something more urgent, and another fire that you need to put out, instead of building something.

"Coming to Webster, a mutual friend for me and Susan Polgar, a grandmaster who lives in Texas, brought to my attention that Susan might be leaving Texas Tech. Susan and I exchanged a couple of phone calls, and one thing led to another. As a result, we ended up with Susan coming to Webster.

"We didn't have a chess club, but we have had people among the faculty and among students who wanted to play chess. Instead of starting with a chess club where people would just come to kill time, we wanted to do this in a more strategic and purposeful way, and our association with Susan will allow us to do that."

Gliga and Luba

I was interested in hearing a bit more about Dr. Schuster's connection with the former world-class player Svetozar Gligoric.

"I'm close – we know each other," he said. "He was already old when I was starting to play chess. Don't tell this to Svetozar if you ever come across him! I met him when I was a kid. We also met when he was in Montreal twelve years ago. I was a guest in his house. We had wonderful conversations about chess. Of course, I live here, he lives over there, so we lost contact.

"For all of us who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, two players had a formative influence on all of us – Gliga and Luba [Ljubomir Ljubojevic]. Luba I knew when he was playing speed chess in the local clubs. That was an event in itself, because he was playing with forty-five seconds against five minutes against masters, and he wasn't losing any games."

Cost/benefit analysis

Schuster didn't discuss a specific budget for the chess program, and it's possible that this is still in flux, but he shared an interesting economic viewpoint. "People ask how much money we will spend. Throughout my life, I have much more concentrated on the benefits of something than on costs of something. There are costs of setting up the program, especially if you are going to be associated with arguably one of the greatest female chess players in the history of the game.

"We are going to give scholarships to the kids, but all of those kids have phenomenal GPAs and brilliant scholastic achievements. So they would qualify if they had independently decided to come to Webster. They would all qualify for a substantial – the top – package that we offer. There is a marginal cost of bringing them in, because we are giving them a little bit more than if they only had scholastic achievement.

"We will help them to come here to play chess, to socialize with other people, and to achieve their goals. On the other hand, we also have the costs of running the program. In the first year, we are going to fund that from our budget, but both the president and myself will absolutely do everything we can to popularize the program, and to master the elements that will allow us to make this even a better enterprise than it is.

"So yes, we have invested some money. This is going to be a strategic investment. As they say, 'no money, no mission.' We are not shying away from that. We are not going to say it was a fortuitous thing, and we're just running it for nothing. On the other hand, we are convinced that the benefits for the students of Webster University, for Webster University, and for the greater St. Louis regional area, as well as for the chess in the United States would be enormous because of this type of program.

"We do count on the support of various sources, which are going to enable us to make this a sustainable enterprise."

SPICE at Webster

At Webster University, Polgar will have the title of Executive Director of SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence). Her husband Paul Truong will be managing marketing efforts for SPICE. Polgar and Truong begin work there in June, with her annual girls' tournament taking place sometime in July.

Asked if Polgar will hold open tournaments on campus, Schuster quickly replied, "I sincerely hope so. I am not going to play, because I don't need to embarrass myself, but absolutely yes. We will organize a simul. I didn't say this to Susan, but I will not take 'no' as an answer. I will try to bring Svetozar here, his health permitting, as the oldest living grandmaster, to be a special guest, and maybe to give a simul.

Polgar has stated that one of the elements that attracted her to St. Louis was the proximity of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, which has quickly become the epicenter of U.S. chess. I asked Dr. Schuster if there was any formal involvement between the chess club and Webster University.

"No, there isn't. We do not have any formal involvement with the St. Louis chess club, but that doesn't mean that we cannot have it down the road. I believe firmly that cooperation is better than competition, but I also believe that a healthy competition is healthy.

"We will, however, be in a completely different type of market. I do think that the St. Louis chess club will potentially greatly benefit from what Webster is doing, because those grandmasters who will be playing for us can find some type of engagement in the St. Louis chess club, if there is an interest from the people who are running the chess club in St. Louis.

"Mr. Sinquefield made St. Louis the capitol of American chess, and we are going to make St. Louis the world capitol of chess."

Coincidence or not?

Virtually at the same time that Webster University announced its acquisition of SPICE, Lindenwood University, also in suburban St. Louis, noted that it too will be starting up what it hopes will become a strong chess program, beginning this fall.

I asked Schuster if there had been any coordination between the two programs, but it appears that both universities undertook their chess initiatives independently, and without knowledge of the other's plans.

"No, there has not been any coordination," Dr. Schuster explained. "I didn't know about their program. It was a surprise, but a pleasant surprise that another university is contemplating entering into this arena, and that actually validates the concept. So I think that's great."

Full article here.

No. 1-Ranked Chess Institute in the Nation Moving to Webster Groves

No. 1-Ranked Chess Institute in the Nation Moving to Webster Groves

The Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence will make Webster University its new home after five years at Texas Tech University.

By Carlos Restrepo
Email the author
5:55 am

Susan Polgar, world and Olympiad champion of chess, will move her Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) from Texas Tech University to Webster University, effective June 1.

Polgar was recruited by Texas Tech in 2007 to lead the new SPICE chess institute. However, Polgar said the university there did not have the resources to sustain the fast-growing chess program.

“The program grew very fast,” said Polgar, who is a winner of four world chess championships and five Olympic gold medals. “We are very thankful for our partnership with Texas Tech. We had many great accomplishments there, but it was time to move on.”

Julian Schuster, provost of Webster University, said he has been playing chess for most of his life and has befriended several professional chess players throughout his career in academia. Schuster said a friend had told him that Polgar was planning on leaving Texas Tech, so he saw an opportunity for Webster.

“All my life I’ve thought chess is a great educational tool,” Schuster said. “I always have had an idea to form a chess club, but never sought the opportunity. When one my friends told me Susan Polgar was contemplating leaving Texas, I put two and two together and moved the initiative forward with the university.”

In addition to Polgar, 10 students from Texas Tech, who are part of the chess institute’s “A” team, will also relocate to Webster. At least six of them will receive full-ride scholarships to attend their new home campus, Schuster said.

Schuster said he is not sure of the total cost to the university for bringing the SPICE institute, Polgar and the 10 students to Webster. Schuster said he sees it as a good investment.

“Everyone — the New York Times, the other newspapers — ask me this question, ‘How much will it cost?’” Schuster said. “This is not important. What’s more important is how many direct and indirect benefits this will have for Webster University, Webster Groves, St. Louis, Missouri and even the United States. We are convinced that we will emerge as one of the best universities and we will become an attractive place for the best students to come and to join us. In that regard, it will put Webster Groves on the world map.”

Polgar said it may be difficult to adapt from being at a large university such as Texas Tech, with a population of about 32,000, to Webster University, which has an enrollment of about 4,500 students. However, Polgar said Webster’s campuses abroad and its global mission are a perfect fit for her program.

“Chess is an international game, and anyone can play it,” Polgar said. “We hope to attract students from other countries to come to Webster.”

Both Polgar and Schuster said the institute will serve not only students at the university, but also residents of Webster Groves and surrounding areas.

“We still have to iron-out the details, but there will be opportunities to make it accessible to anyone interested in chess,” Polgar said. “That’s the beauty of chess; it is available to everyone. It doesn’t matter how tall you are, how old you are, how fast you are, what background you come from, it’s available and accessible to everybody. And it will be that way at Webster, too.”

Source: http://webstergroves.patch.com

SPICE - Knight Raiders win SW Collegiate Championship

L to R: GM Elshan Moradiabadi, GM Denes Boros, IM-elect Faik Aleskerov, GM Andre Diamant, IM Vitaly Neimer, GM Anatoly Bykhovsky at Dallas Love Airport


Final game: Moradiabadi - Boros

No fears, no tears, and no excuses!
On site reporter
February 19, 2012

High fever, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, teary eyes, and sometimes hallucination, none of this could stop the SPICE warriors from intense battles and giving 150% of everything they had in Dallas at the SW Collegiate Championship.

Led by Grandmaster Anatoly Bykhovsky, a (finance major) sophomore and co-captain of the Knight Raiders, the team captured its first ever SW Collegiate Team Championship title. As a freshman last year, he occupied board 1 and helped the Knight Raiders capture its first ever Final Four Championship, ending the dominance of UTD and UMBC.

But he could not do it alone without the heroic effort of his teammates. Just prior to heading to the airport for Dallas, two members of the Knight Raiders, Grandmasters Denes Boros and Andre Diamant were in emergency care. They almost did not make the trip but at the end, they did not want to let their teammates and university down and decided to suit up for the tough event, the strongest ever with 7 GMs, 6 IMs, and 2 WGMs. Competing against top level competition is hard enough. But to do it with this severe handicap made it even tougher.


L to R: Arbiter Sneed, GM Boros, GM Moradiabadi, IM Aleskerov, GM Bykhovsky, IM Neimer

Things did not get better after the team got to the hotel. Two other team members, Grandmaster Elshan Moradiabadi and International Master elect Faik Aleskerov, started to physically feel bad as well. That brought the team down to just two healthy players out of six, Bykhovsky and International Master Vitaly Neimer!

But they did not give in to their illness and less than perfect physical condition. No fears, no tears, and no excuses! They fought hard each round to win as a team. Facing the toughest schedule, Bykhovsky scored 2 wins and 3 draws to earn 2nd place on tiebreaks for individual honor, while Moradiabadi finished 3rd, Diamant 4th, and Boros 7th, on tiebreaks, all with identical scores. In fact, none of the grandmasters suffered defeat, while scoring an outstanding +8 to help the team win first place.

Congratulations to the SPICE warriors! They will be missed at Texas Tech and we all wish them the best of luck next year at Webster University.

At Lubbock Airport

Chess Institute To Transfer To Webster University In June

Chess Institute To Transfer To Webster University In June
February 17, 2012

Building on St. Louis' growing reputation as a world-class chess center, Webster University is making some chess moves of its own.

The university announced that chess Grandmaster Susan Polgar, World and Olympiad Champion, and her Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE), will relocate to Webster from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, on June 1, 2012.

In addition, all members of the reigning national collegiate champion Texas Tech "A" chess team will transfer to Webster and be enrolled at the University in the 2012-2013 academic year.

The chess players who will either transfer to Webster from Texas Tech or enroll as incoming freshmen include eight Grandmasters and two International Masters, and the team is expected to rank No. 1 in the nation in Fall 2012.

Polgar is the winner of four world championships and the only world champion in history - male or female - to win the Triple-Crown (Rapid, Blitz and Classical Chess world championships).

She is the first woman to qualify for the Men's World Championship Cycle, earn the Men's Grandmaster title, and to receive the Grandmaster of the Year Award. In 2011, Polgar became the first female head coach to lead a men's Division 1 team (Texas Tech University) to the national title.

For more information on SPICE at Webster University, go to www.webster.edu/spice.

Source: http://www.websterkirkwoodtimes.com

This is the chess equivalent of the entire championship University of Alabama football team and coaching staff up and transferring

Sinquefield should focus on chess, not public school, boards
By BARB SHELLY
The Kansas City Star

Before Rex Sinquefield became a multimillionaire and a political kingmaker, he was a chess player.

And whatever you think of Sinquefield’s libertarian views and shameless flaunting of his fortune to influence Missouri government, know this: He is revered as a chess patriarch.

The Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, a sparkling chess palace that Sinquefield renovated out of a 1897 building, has 700 active members and is host to the nation’s top tournaments. It has a grandmaster in residence and it helped persuade the nation’s top-rated player, Hikaru Nakamura, to move to St. Louis.

Sinquefield, a retired investment fund manager, engineered the move of the World Chess Hall of Fame from Miami to St. Louis. He and his wife, Jeanne, purchased the chess library of the brilliant recluse, Bobby Fischer, which includes notebooks Fischer used to prepare for his legendary match against Russian Boris Spassky.

Because of Sinquefield, dozens of schoolchildren in the St. Louis area play chess. And now the nation’s top-rated chess team has announced it is moving from Texas Tech University in Lubbock to Webster University in St. Louis.

This is the chess equivalent of the entire championship University of Alabama football team and coaching staff up and transferring to Creighton University in Omaha.

Hungarian-born chess champ Susan Polgar, who coaches at Texas Tech, says she is bringing five grandmasters and two international chess masters with her, and an additional three grandmasters are expected to join the team next year as freshmen.

I emailed a news clipping about this to my son, who plays on a chess team at a university that happens to be where Sinquefield did his graduate work.

“Wow,” he emailed back. “That is huge news.”

It’s rare that I am able to tell my son something he doesn’t know, much less get a “wow” out of him. So I thank Sinquefield for that.

Polgar told me Sinquefield wasn’t instrumental in arranging the move, but he was a factor. “We felt it was a nice coincidence,” she said. “We will be in the Mecca of chess in America that grew out of nowhere thanks to the generosity of Mr. Rex Sinquefield.”

Julian Schuster, the provost at Webster, a private, non-profit university, said the school aspired to become a “truly international university,” and chess, being an international sport, fits with that mission.

The school will at first provide scholarship aid for chess players out of its merit scholarship pool, Schuster said.

“We will also approach donors and other interested organizations and foundations,” he added.

Source: http://www.kansascity.com

Could chess become the hottest collegiate sport?

Dastardly Doings in Chess World: Webster U. Poaches Texas Tech's Coach, Team
By Aimee Levitt
Thu., Feb. 16 2012 at 1:40 PM

Since we know now that chess is a sport, maybe it shouldn't be surprising that the chess community is resorting to sports-like behavior: boosterism, trash-talking and now wholesale poaching of the best collegiate players.

Case in point: This school year, Webster University has no chess team. Next year it will have the number-one ranked team in the country, thanks to its recruitment of Susan Polgar, former women's world champion and current chess coach at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Nearly half of the Texas Tech team has decided to follow its coach: Eight grandmasters and two international masters have already committed to study at Webster starting this fall.

Polgar cites Texas Tech's lack of financial support as her reason for leaving. When she arrived in Lubbock in the fall of 2007 to start up the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (known as SPICE), the university allotted her $15,000 for scholarships. When the chess team won the national championship last year, that amount was doubled, but, as Paul Truong, Polgar's husband and team manager, told KCBD News in Lubbock, many top-tier chess schools offer $30,000 per player.

"A grandmaster is the highest title in chess, and around the world there is maybe 1,200. Tech could potentially have eight grandmasters next year if we would have enough funding," he said. "Imagine having eight Michael Jordans or eight Tom Bradys...it would be insane. Unfortunately we don't have funding, and if we don't have funding they go elsewhere."

The exact terms of the deal haven't been worked out yet, says Webster spokeswoman Susan Kerth, but all the money will be coming out of the university's operating budget and each of the ten players transferring from Texas Tech will be receiving a scholarship.

There are other attractions, of course, notably the St. Louis Chess Club, which lured Hikaru Nakamura, one of the world's top-ranked players to relocate here and which helped get us named the United States Chess Federation's Chess City of the Year for 2011. Not to mention the deep pockets and generosity of local chess-loving billionaire Rex Sinquefield. Lindenwood University, meanwhile, has announced it will be starting up its own team, but from scratch, coached by Ben Finegold, the Chess Club's grandmaster-in-residence and chess correspondent for the St. Louis Beacon.

Polgar was never officially on the hiring block. Webster's provost, Julian Z. Schuster, learned through mutual friends that Polgar was considering leaving Texas Tech and initiated an e-mail conversation; eventually Polgar came to St. Louis for a visit and the deal was done.

Texas Tech is trying to put on a brave face. "With the most recent rounds of budget cuts, we're all experiencing a little tightening in the purse strings so to speak," Chris Cook, a university spokesman. "We have other national championship programs. We did see the importance of the chess program, but you have to meet the needs of all programs while staying in the overall budget."

Webster, solidly in the NCAA's Division III, has no such conflicts. (Quick, do you know the team nickname?) Could chess become the hottest collegiate sport in Webster Groves? (It's the Gorlocks, after Gore and Lockwood Avenues, two streets that border the university.)

Source: http://riverfronttimes.com

Daily Debriefing

Daily Debriefing
By Lindsay Ellis, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Thursday, February 16, 2012

Texas Tech University chess grandmaster Susan Polgar will transfer her leadership and her best 10 players to Webster University later this year with the goal of establishing a chess program, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Polgar started Texas Tech’s chess program — which is named for her — in 2007, but decided to leave due to the institution’s “lack of financial resources,” Polgar said in an interview with NBC affiliate KCBD. While one chess player can receive up to $30,000 in scholarships at rival programs, Texas Tech gave $30,000 to the entire program last year, even after winning the 2011 Final Four Championship, KCBD reported. Webster’s team, which will rank first nationwide on paper in its first official year, will also be named for Polgar, The Times reported.

Source: http://thedartmouth.com

New York Times on SPICE Chess Move to Webster

New York Times on SPICE Chess Move to Webster
Feb 15, 2012

Webster University recently announced that champion chess Grandmaster Susan Polgar and her Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) are relocating to Webster University along with a champion chess team.

The St. Louis Beacon called it “a major coup” for Webster, and now The New York Times has covered the move.

The Times talked with Webster Provost and senior vice president Julian Schuster, who helped recruit and hire Polgar:

Mentioning that Webster has campuses in more than 100 places around the world, Mr. Schuster, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, where chess is popular, said: “I did not grow up in this country. I do not play football. I do not have this connection from the old country. Chess is a global game, and we live in global times. And Webster is a global university.”

The coverage on the National page of the Times also drew the notice of Deb Peterson in her gossip column at stltoday.com, the website for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Webster University attracts Susan Polgar, top ranked chess coach

Webster University attracts Susan Polgar, top ranked chess coach
9:50 PM, Feb 15, 2012
By Ann Rubin
NBC TV - St. Louis (KSDK)

Webster Groves, MO (KSDK) - They've never had a team before. But next year, Webster University will have the top ranked chess team in the nation.

So how did they pull it off?

Texas Tech had that top ranked team, but apparently not the funding to keep them.

So Webster University offered the head of the program, the manager, and many of the players a new home.

"Imagine if you would have like 8 Michael Jordan's or 8 Tom Bradys on a team. It would be insane. But unfortunately there's no funding. And if we don't have funding they would go elsewhere," said manager Paul Truong.

And now that's exactly what's happening.

The head of the Texas Tech chess team is moving to Webster University and taking her best players with her.

Susan Polgar, a grandmaster and former women's world champion, says Webster provided not only the right funding, but the right fit.

"Because they are a global university, because of the location, that it's in the Midwest right in the middle of the country and also, not less importantly that St. Louis is the chess center of America today," said Polgar.

The city is home to both the World Chess Hall of Fame, and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, places which have already attracted international attention.

"They said it's the Mecca of chess. So for us it was really exciting to hear that international players from half a world away have already heard about the club and St. Louis," explained Tony Rich, Executive Director of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis.

Call it a strategic move. They're counting on the fact that having top level players will attract more top level players to the area.

In fact, Lindenwood University announced it too will be starting a chess team in the fall, complete with scholarships.

They're recruiting from Iceland to India and are looking forward to some stiff collegiate competition.

"We're really glad Webster is starting a chess program so we can make us work harder to make ours stronger. And the players know each other so there will be some friendly competition in the area. If it can be friendly," said Grandmaster and new Lindenwood coach Ben Finegold.

The top ten players from Texas Tech will all be starting at Webster in the fall. Susan Polgar will start June 1st, in time for a summer tournament.

Source: NBC TV - St. Louis KSDK

Making the right move

GM Bykhovsky, GM Meier, IM Neimer, IM-elect Aleskerov, GM Boros, GM Diamant, GM Moradiabadi (missing is GMs So, Robson, and Hoyos)

Chess Coach to Leave Texas Tech With Her Team’s Best in Tow
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
New York Times
Published: February 14, 2012

Imagine if a university without a basketball program recruited Mike Krzyzewski, the legendary coach at Duke University, and not only managed to hire him but also persuaded most of his team to switch with him. In essence, that is what Webster University in St. Louis has done by hiring Susan Polgar, the head of the Texas Tech chess program.

Ms. Polgar, a grandmaster and a former women’s world champion, was hired by Texas Tech University in 2007 to create an elite chess program. The university even named the program after her, calling it the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence, or Spice.

Last April, Texas Tech won the Final Four of Chess, a competition in Herndon, Va., among the top collegiate teams in the country. It was Texas Tech’s first championship since Ms. Polgar arrived at the university.

Now Ms. Polgar and her husband, Paul Truong, the manager of the chess team, are leaving Texas Tech, which is spread over more than 1,800 acres in Lubbock and has more than 32,000 students. They are heading to Webster, a university mostly geared toward postgraduate students around the world, whose main campus in St. Louis is 47 acres. The chess program at Webster will be called Spice.

The top 10 players at Texas Tech — eight grandmasters and two international masters, some of whom had just committed to the university — are also switching. They are scheduled to start in the fall; Ms. Polgar is to begin on June 1. On paper, Webster will have the No. 1 ranked team in the country.

In an interview with KCBD, NBC’s local affiliate in Lubbock, Mr. Truong said the switch was caused by a lack of financial resources at Texas Tech. Ms. Polgar told KCBD that the program grew too quickly for the university to accommodate it.

Chris Cook, a spokesman for Texas Tech, said that budget cuts had affected several teams but that they were still adequately financed. “We are giving the programs what they need to compete,” Mr. Cook said. He said the university intended to hire a new coach and a new manager to succeed Ms. Polgar and Mr. Truong.

Julian Z. Schuster, the provost of Webster University, said he was responsible for recruiting and hiring Ms. Polgar and establishing the team. Mr. Schuster said that he and Ms. Polgar had mutual friends and that he had learned she was thinking about leaving Texas Tech. They exchanged e-mails, and Ms. Polgar went to visit.

“Technically, I don’t know who winked first,” Mr. Schuster said. “You know the old expression: it takes two to tango.”

Mr. Schuster said Webster had an endowment of about $80 million and was financing the new program, including the cost of scholarships, entirely on its own. The financial commitment would run at least long enough for the students who are matriculating, some of whom are freshmen, to graduate. Mr. Schuster said that having a top team would eventually more than pay for itself by raising Webster’s profile and stimulating interest in the university.

Mentioning that Webster has campuses in more than 100 places around the world, Mr. Schuster, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, where chess is popular, said: “I did not grow up in this country. I do not play football. I do not have this connection from the old country. Chess is a global game, and we live in global times. And Webster is a global university.”

Distinguishing itself from other universities was one of the primary reasons Texas Tech created its chess program five years ago. Other universities — including the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — have made similar decisions.

James A. Stallings, the director of the Dallas chess program, said Webster’s recruitment of such a top team was “unprecedented,” pointing out that most programs start from scratch.

(Coincidentally, just three days before Webster made its announcement on Feb. 3, Lindenwood University, a liberal arts institution just outside of St. Louis that has 17,000 students, said it was starting a chess program and had hired a local grandmaster named Ben Finegold as its coach.)

Mr. Stallings said he was a little concerned from a fairness standpoint about Webster recruiting so many of Texas Tech’s players as well as its coaching staff, but he welcomed the creation of another top program.

“It validates the concept,” Mr. Stallings said. “It is a good thing for scholastic youth in this country.”

Mr. Schuster at Webster said simply, “To use the chess analogy, I think we made the right move.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com