Chess Team Qualifies for its 13th Consecutive National Championship

Webster University’s Chess team qualified for its 13th consecutive appearance at the President’s Cup National Collegiate Chess Tournament this past weekend. Webster’s team finished in the top four during the annual Pan American Intercollegiate Team Championship (Pan Am), a four-day-long competition among 44 of the top college chess teams in North America. It was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Jan. 2 – 5.

Webster will face off against the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley, the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and Saint Louis University for the national championship in April. The students on Webster’s qualifying team are Lazaro Bruzon Batista, Yasser Quesada Perez, Harsha Bharathakoti, Emilio Cordova Daza. All four are ranked as grandmasters. Besides being on one of the top teams, Bharathakoti also took sixth place overall among all the chess players at the Pan Am this year. This year’s tournament had 189 players.

“My congratulations go out to Webster’s team for a solid effort and demonstrating once again why Webster’s team has been ranked #1 since its inception. Our men’s team finished in the top four, and our women’s team was only a few spots behind them, scoring higher than nearly every other men’s team at the event and earning the top spot for women players,” said Webster University President Julian Schuster. “I look forward to supporting our team as they battle to win Webster’s seventh national championship later this year.”

Webster also earned another achievement at this year’s Pan Am Tournament – its second team took 11th place at the tournament, the best showing for any all-female team this year. The members of that team are International Master Anna Sargsyan, Woman Grandmaster Annamaria Marjanovic, Woman International Master Mounika Akshaya Bommini, and Woman FIDE Master Toshali Vittanala. FIDE is the acronym for the International Chess Federation.  

"This is the first time since 2017 that we have an all-female team. Despite intense competition from many top chess programs in the country, our women's team hit a home run by winning the last three matches on demand,” said Webster University Chess Coach Liem Le. “They not only were the best all-female team, but with the same number of points with the fifth place overall, they also finished higher than almost all of the men’s teams as well. I am proud of both our teams who gave their best to fight for top honors in college chess for Webster University."

Since it was founded in 2012, Webster’s chess team has consistently been the highest-ranked team in the United States and is currently tied with University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) for having the most national championship – six. Only one other institution has had more consecutive appearances at the President’s Cup than Webster - UMBC has qualified for the tournament 15 times in a row. Webster is tied with UTD for the second most consecutive appearances – 13. UTD holds the record for having the most appearances at the President’s Cup. This year will mark their 20th time.   

The date and location of the President’s Cup tournament has not been publicly announced yet.