The importance of College Chess

Paul Truong, coach of the Webster chess team and Director of Marketing & PR for SPICE, just made the following statement regarding the recent big surge in interest in College Chess. Due to space limitation, he decided to have it posted here and provided a link for readers of the Washington Post and FOX Sports:

First of all, kudos to Mike Rosenwald, the author of this article, and Louis Ojeda, Jr., author of this article for covering a very interesting issue.

Secondly, I would like to correct a few misconceptions about College Chess, budgets, and recruiting, etc. College Chess has a long history; however, it has grown dramatically in the past seven years, and now receives serious attention from the media.

As I pointed out to Mike in an email, the secret of building a national championship team has little to do with an arms race. As a head coach, Susan Polgar has led her teams to four consecutive Final Four Championship wins with 2 different universities. The first victory came with a team that was dubbed the “Cinderella team,” the organization with the smallest budget, and by far the lowest rank. No team had ever won the Final Four being the bottom seed until her team did it in April 2011.

So how did they win? Hard work, team work, good strategy, and good coaching! She knows how to coach and how to motivate her players. Her players respect her and they will always fight hard for her.

She is labeled as the most controversial chess coach. Why? Because she sets very high standards for her students, and constantly challenges them to achieve these goals! She demands that her student players focus on their school work. The average GPA of the national championship team is around 3.6 or 3.7, with multiple players with 4.0. She insists that they work out physically to stay in shape and enhance stamina. Many members of her team do CrossFit, and all of them pay attention to fitness. She also asks her players to volunteer in the community, conduct themselves professionally on and off the board, respect one another, stay out of trouble, and be productive global citizens. Some think that is too much to ask. She disagrees.

Today, many universities have world class coaches such as Onischuk, Macieja, Yermolinsky, Milovanovic, etc. Being the only female coach in a division I men’s chess team, Susan has to work much harder to prove that she belongs on the male-dominated elite level. Therefore, she knows that her every move will be severely scrutinized by doubters and sexist individuals. Being a pioneer is never an easy task.

As for the size of the budgets and scholarships, this is another major misconception. As the Washington Post has pointed out, UMBC provides full tuition and a $15,000-a-year food and housing stipend for their fellows. That is quite a bit more than Webster currently offers (when the full value is calculated) and there is no way Webster could match that. The size of chess teams from UT Dallas, Texas Tech, and UT Brownsville, etc. also are all bigger than Webster, so when the full value of their programs are calculated, they too exceed what Webster spends. Webster provides academic and need-based scholarships to the Chess team members, and those students qualify for these types of scholarships just as any other students.

To compare budgets between various chess programs is like apples and oranges. Some programs count office space, utilities, office supplies, and other various miscellaneous expenditures as a part of their budgets while others do not. Some programs are under various Deans / Provosts, which means that whole sections of their budgets aren’t actually counted as being part of the “chess” budget, but rather are calculated as part of someone else’s expenditures. As the famous saying by Mark Twain: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." This was explained to reporters, but all failed to mention this in their stories.

Another completely false narrative is the reason why Webster University chess team is ranked #1 in the country and won the last two Final Fours. Many have repeated the myth all members of the Texas Tech team left with Susan and enrolled at Webster. This is completely false and can easily be debunked. The fact is four of the five top members of the Webster University National Championship team were freshmen (Grandmasters Wesley So of the Philippines, Ray Robson of the US, Manuel Leon Hoyos of Mexico, and Fidel Corrales of Cuba), and therefore weren’t even in college when Susan left for Webster. This year, grandmaster Le Quang Liem of Vietnam also came to Webster as a freshman. Only one of the top five players on Webster’s team transferred from Texas Tech. He was a sophomore when he did that, having only spent one year at Texas Tech.

All of Webster’s players were heavily recruited by other universities, including many of our rivals. So why did they choose to come to Webster? They did not choose Webster because of better scholarships. If they were interested in a free education, they easily could have gone to other schools that offer top chess players full scholarships, room, board, book money and stipends, something Webster does not do. These players chose Webster because of the reputation of the coach, just like Nick Saban of Alabama football or Mike Mike Krzyzewski of Duke basketball. These players want to learn and play for the best. Simple as that! None of them has ever heard of Webster until the chess program was announced.

And Susan helps them achieve success. Two of her players won world titles last year. Le Quang Liem became the World Blitz Champion and Wesley So won the World University Championship. Three of her players qualified for the World Cup. Eight of her players are Olympians from different countries. This is unprecedented. When Wesley So came to Webster University in August 2012, he was ranked 99 in the world. After a little more than a year training with Susan, he shot up to #18, while winning 11 big events. This is why there is a long list of students wanting to train with the Head Coach of Webster.

So what is the bottom line? Webster University is a small global private tier one university in St. Louis with students from all 50 states and 148 countries around the world. They offer excellent education but they do not have the billions of endowment as some other big universities. They obviously could not match the financial numbers of other giant schools. But the top administrators at Webster University, President Stroble and Provost Schuster made a compelling pitch to why Susan Polgar and her SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence) program should relocate to Webster in the Summer of 2012. They understood the value which a top level chess program can bring to any institution in major publicity, image building, and recruiting, etc. They also understood the importance of chess in education and in the global market. A few weeks ago, Susan co-taught a credit course at Webster with Professor O’Bannon: SPICE’ing up Business Strategy with Chess. It was a huge success with big turnout. She is working with several Deans and Professors to incorporate chess into various grad/undergrad courses. This is just the beginning of the new revolution, chess in higher education and the real business world.

That is why she picked Webster over others, and for less money. Winning national championships is great but it is a secondary thing. Giving young deserving students a great education, on and off the chess board, and building characters, are much more important. And this is what Webster University and SPICE is all about!

Paul Truong
Coach of the Chess Team
Webster University

Webster Celebrates College Chess Title

Webster Celebrates College Chess Title, As New Hire Pays Off 
by Alan Greenblatt 
April 08, 2013 3:39 PM 
NPR

If there's no such thing as bad publicity, how much is good publicity worth? Webster University wants to find out.

Last year, the university didn't have a chess team. On Sunday, its team took home the national college championship, the President's Cup, after winning what is often called the "Final Four" of chess.

Webster, which is located just outside of St. Louis, picked up its team nearly intact last year from Texas Tech. The university hired coach Susan Polgar, who had won two straight championships in Texas, and the whole team came along with her.

Webster's chess team includes eight grandmasters. It's become instantly so dominant that two of its squads qualified for the chess Final Four, although only one was allowed to play.

When it comes to winning championships, Polgar and her players "have been there, individually and collectively," Webster provost Julian Schuster said Monday at a campus rally celebrating the team's victory.

"Let us thank them for what they've done for us," Schuster said. "For the first time in the almost 100-year history of our university, we are the national champion."

Webster, which is now private and non-denominational, was founded as a Catholic women's college and has become known over the years for its performing arts programs and its business school. Its main campus is in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves, but Webster boasts almost 100 satellite campuses around the world.

Schuster said in an interview that chess was part of his upbringing in Yugoslavia and that his primary goal in bringing Polgar to Webster was incorporating the game into the intellectual life of the university.

Still, he added, "there's no doubt" that their victory is good news for the university.

At the celebration, members of Webster's media relations team counted reporters in attendance, noting that the weekend tournament had garnered the university national attention (including from NPR).

"The Washington Post was the big one," said Patrick Giblin, Webster's director of public relations, referring to a front-page story that ran Saturday.

Chess has become big business in the St. Louis area. The World Chess Hall of Fame moved to the city two years ago, while St. John Vianney High School in nearby Kirkwood won its second national championship this weekend.

Webster's own champions looked a little shy and sheepish as they entered the campus lounge with their big trophy in tow, joining school administrators and someone wearing the costume of the campus mascot, the cheetah-buffalo-St. Bernard blend Gorlok.

There were no pom-pom girls, tipped cars or burning mattresses, but there were cookies in the shapes of chess pieces.

"I wasn't even aware there was a team," said Brieanna Lee, a psychology major sitting in the lounge, eating french fries and ranch dressing.

But Lee admitted their victory in the chess Final Four was "an accomplishment." Other students who happened to be in the lounge said they "lived in the music basement" or were otherwise "too busy" to follow the chess team, but generally agreed its triumph would help their school nonetheless.

Success builds upon success. Most of Webster's grandmasters hail from other countries, but one of the players from Vianney's winning chess team has expressed an interest in joining them from neighboring Kirkwood.

"What we hope is that the success of our chess team will be perceived as the success of the university in general," Schuster says. "It will permeate through everything we do and will speak to how we do things in the future."

Source: http://www.npr.org

Webster wins Final Four

Webster wins Final Four of chess, with UMBC finishing third 
By Michael S. Rosenwald,
April 07, 2013
Washington Post

Webster University won the Final Four of college chess in Rockville on Sunday, dominating the University of Texas-Dallas and the University of Maryland Baltimore County, the hometown favorite and former powerhouse.

UMBC finished third, behind UT-Dallas.

The victory was Webster’s first Final Four championship, but not the first title for its coach, Susan Polgar, who left her job directing the Texas Tech program last year after two consecutive Final Four victories.

Polgar’s team of grandmasters followed her to St. Louis — an unprecedented event in collegiate chess that made national headlines.

“I think Webster is now clearly the dominant force in chess,” said longtime UMBC chess director Alan Sherman. “There’s no doubt about that.”

UMBC perfected the modern collegiate chess model, offering scholarships to grandmasters from around the world, racking up championships and generating positive PR. But UMBC is increasingly the underdog now. The school has won just two Final Four titles since 2007 after winning four straight in the mid-2000s. Sherman predicted Webster’s win last week.

Webster finished with 9.5 points in the round robin tournament with four players competing for each team. UT-Dallas had 7 points, while UMBC had 5 and the University of Illinois scored just 2.5.

UMBC was out of the running for the title after the first two rounds on Saturday, when it scored just 2.5 points. The school lost its head-to-head match against Webster, 2.5-1.5, and fell to UT-Dallas, 3-1.

Webster and UT-Dallas squared off Sunday morning for the title, with each school playing four grandmasters. (UMBC came into the tournament with two grandmasters.) Webster won the round, 3-1.

“I’m very happy for the team and proud of the way we prepared,” said Polgar, whose bosses, the president and provost of Webster, traveled to Rockville for the tournament.

Polgar will not, however, bring home the tournament’s coveted President’s Cup trophy.

Before the tournament started, Polgar tweeted that her former employer, Texas Tech, “forgot to send back the President’s Cup. Now the winning team will not have the cup to bring back. 1st time cup was not returned.”

Source: http://articles.washingtonpost.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