Checkmate: UMBC wins team chess championship

WASHINGTON - They can anticipate your every move and clean your clock in competition. The chess team from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County is headed to the Final Four of College Chess in April.

The team tied for first place with the University of Texas at Dallas in the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship in Dallas.

"They've now won eight times -- more times than for any other college in the history of college chess," says Alan Sherman, UMBC professor and director of the chess program.

Of course, with nicknames that include The Uzbek Dragon, The Stealth and The Convict you can bet there's a lot of psychological strategy going on.

It works when player Sabina Foisor of Romania faces an opponent. The grandmaster's nickname is Sunshine.

"It might have the effect of causing the opponents not to try quite so hard," Sherman tells WTOP.

Including Foisor, the team has four grandmasters. The others are Leonid Kritz, Sergey Erenburg and Timur Gareyev.

The win in the Pan American came despite the fact that two of UMBC's six players missed several rounds of play because they had high fevers.

The six-round tournament involved 29 teams, including teams from Harvard and Yale. It ended Tuesday afternoon.

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