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Played at the Booz Allen Hamilton building in Herndon, Virginia, over the last weekend, the event - also known as the President's Cup - featured three teams from Texas and the defending champion University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). With students from 20 different countries, this year's Final Four was the strongest: each team had three grandmasters in the line-up. It was also the toughest competition, the final result hinging on a single game.
In the end, the lowest-rated team, Texas Tech (TTU), beat the odds and finished first, scoring 7-5. University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) took second place with 6.5-5.5. The combined team, University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College (UTB/TSC) came third with 6-6. The UMBC lost all three matches and ended with a 4.5- 7.5 score.
Pictured above is the winning TTU team (GM Davorin Kuljasevic, IM Istvan Sipos, Faik Aleskerov, GM Andre Diamant and GM Anatoly Bykhovsky) with the coach GM Susan Polgar, a former women's world champion. It was a great week for the Polgar sisters. Across the Atlantic, Judit Polgar shared first place at the 12th European Individual Championship in Aix-les-Bains, France. With some 165 grandmasters participating, the competition was arguably the strongest open tournament in the world.
The downfall of the defending champion UMBC began in the first round, played on April 1, the day of pranks and cruel jokes. One of them was played on the German grandmaster Leonid Kritz (UMBC) who turned his winning position with two pawns up into a loss in a mere two moves. Instead of winning the match 2.5-1.5, UMBC lost it.
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to follow the game.
The game reminds of a study by Leonid Kubbel with similar material and fabulous knight moves.
Leonid Kubbel, Ceské Slovo, 1925
Can you find how White wins?
The solution will appear next week.
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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