University Of Texas At Dallas: Chess Team Shows It's Up To Speed, Wins First U.S. Blitz Title

Press release from University of Texas at Dallas:

Office of Media Relations

Oct. 1, 2021

The University of Texas at Dallas chess team recently topped higher-seeded teams, including Webster University and Saint Louis University, to win the 2021 U.S. Online Collegiate Blitz Championship and place third in the Online Collegiate Rapid Championship for the first time in the program’s history.

“They really exceeded expectations,” said Jim Stallings, UT Dallas Chess Program director. “It’s an important win for our team.”

The annual Rapid and Blitz Championships are two back-to-back, multiround tournaments that began as a live event in 2019. Hosted by Texas Tech University on Sept. 25-26, this year’s event was held virtually due to COVID-19 precautions.

In the rapid championship, each player has 10 minutes total for each game, and in the blitz, each player has 3 minutes total. Those who perform well typically make fewer unforced errors or can exploit their opponents’ last mistake.

To prepare, the team played practice matches and conducted online drills to adapt to the online format of the competition, said Julio Catalino Sadorra BS’13, UT Dallas chess team coach.

“In speed play, we needed to rely more on intuition for game decision-making,” Sadorra said. “We also needed to train our tactical vision more. Tactical vision is critical whenever there’s only seconds on the clocks, because players often panic and make blunders.”

All members of the team and reserve team, along with a few chess club members, participated in the event. Universities are allowed to send any number of players, but only the top four individual scores from each college count toward the final team standings.

“This team victory is meaningful because our competition has become much tougher, and it’s not every year that UTD wins a national title like this. It’s also encouraging because many of our players have been preparing hard and building their chess knowledge online since last year,” Sadorra said. “These results satisfied their hunger to compete and win championships for our university.”

He added that the win will also help build momentum and confidence as the team prepares for more competitions.

“This team victory is meaningful because our competition has become much tougher, and it’s not every year that UTD wins a national title like this. It’s also encouraging because many of our players have been preparing hard and building their chess knowledge online since last year.”

Julio Catalino Sadorra BS’13, UT Dallas chess team coach

“We as a team have been training very hard for this tournament, and it paid off,” said Rahul Peddi, an economics major and an International Master who was UT Dallas’ top scorer in the rapid championship. “Personally, this win means a lot to me as a freshman. I just came here a month ago, and playing well to contribute to my team’s victory feels good.”

The next competitive event for the chess team is the Texas Collegiate Super Finals, which will be held Oct. 23-24 in Lubbock.

This press release was produced by University of Texas at Dallas. The views expressed here are the author’s own.