KCF University Cup a Big Success

The first Kasparov Chess Foundation University Cup has exceeded all expectations with a huge number of participants.

The team online tournament brought together universities from around the World to compete in a four on four rapid format. The universities were allowed to line up four players and one alternate per team. Each university could participate with more than one team, but only with one team with a rating average over 2200.

GM Naroditsky and FM Giannatos provided commentary during the event

Played over two days on the weekend of February 6 and 7, the event accommodated college students from all continents. This proved to be a great success as the following incredible statistics show:

• 122 teams from 72 universities
• All continents
• 24 countries
• 527 players – 19 GMs, 14 IMs, 1 WGM, 20 FMs, 4 WFMs
• 2156 games played

The tournament was broadcasted live on Twitch to tens of thousands of unique viewers and was widely spread in social media. KCF Young Stars alum GM Daniel Naroditsky was joined by FM Peter Giannatos to cover the action throughout all nine rounds.

World Champion Garry Kasparov joined the commentary during the second day and talked about a variety of subjects, from the tournament games, to Alireza Firouzja’s meteoric rise! You can find the candid commentary in the following links:

Twitch Link Day 1

Twitch Link Day 2

Garry Kasparov’s commentary can be found between rounds six and seven on the second day. Kasparov also addressed all the participants before the games of day started.

World Champion Garry Kasparov eloquently spoke about many things in the chess world, and passionately analyzed some of the games!

The tournament had some clear rating favorites, and they certainly did not disappoint. The University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley (USA) was the #1 seed and really put their foot down on the event. Scoring a perfect 9/9, they left no doubt of who the best team in the event was. The clear leader of the team was GM Vladimir Fedoseev who scored an amazing 8.5/9.

Second place went to the University of Missouri (USA), a relatively new scholarship program that fielded strong grandmasters. Their second board, GM Mikhail Antipov also scored 8.5/9 and was a cornerstone of the team’s success.

Third place was decided on tiebreaks, as Texas Tech University edged out University of Texas at Dallas (USA), Gunadarma University (Indonesia) and University of Cambridge (England) in the final standings. It was Texas Tech’s FM Alexey Sorokin with another 8.5/9 performance that strengthened their squad.

Many other prizes were awarded, but the most valuable were certainly the 1st place and top-u2200 prize as they included an exclusive online training session with Garry Kasparov himself!

The final prizewinner list is as follows:

• University of Texas Rio Grande Valley A, USA – 1st Place and Top University of the Americas + special prize of an on-Line training session with Garry Kasparov.
• University of Missouri A , USA – 2nd Place
• Texas Tech University A, USA – 3rd Place All top 3 teams from USA
• Gunadarma University A, Indonesia – Top University of Asia
• University of Cambridge, England  – Top University of Europe
• University of Benin, Nigeria – Top University of Africa
• Ivan Boberskyj Lviv State University of Physical Culture A, Ukraine – Top U2200 + on-line training session with Garry Kasparov
• Georgia Tech B, USA – Top U2000
• Universidad Autonoma de Chihuahua, Mexico – Top U1800

The tournament was successfully hosted on the lichess.org platform. Chacha Nugroho provided the web hosting and pairing system for the event.

Kudos to the exceptional group of people that organized this event:

• Michael Khodarkovsky, Kasparov Chess Foundation President
• GM Alex Onischuk, US Chess College Committee Chair
• Grant Oen, Chief Arbiter
• GM Zlatko Klaric, KCF Adriatic Director
• Graham Jurgensen, KCF Africa Director
• Ignatius Leong, International Arbiter, KCF Asia-Pacific Director
• GM Darcy Lima, KCF Lusophone Director
• Hiquingari Carranza, KCF Ibero-America Director

We would like to thank the Charlotte Chess Center for their assistance during the event.

For more details and results please visit the official website.

Republished with kind permission by the Kasparov Chess Foundation.