The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) will do something over the next two weekends that no other American university has ever done. It will hold an intramural chess tournament rated by the world governing body of chess, FIDE (Federation Internationale des Echecs).

UTD is able to hold such a tournament for the second year in a row because it has the top-ranked collegiate chess team in the United States (a team with two grandmasters and two international masters) and has players from more than the four countries FIDE requires to sanction an international tournament. In fact, players from five countries – Russia, the U.S., Belarus, Sweden and Poland – will participate in the UTD Chess Championship, which will run from Oct. 25 to Nov. 3.

The results of UTD’s round-robin, intramural event will be counted toward each player’s international rating. (Since the tournament will be classified as a FIDE Category III event, players will be able to earn one leg of their international master title if they score 6.5 points.) UTD will hold the event in Room 3.226 of the Multi-Purpose Building on campus. The public is invited to attend at no charge.

Dr. Tim Redman, a professor of literary studies at UTD and director of the university’s chess program, will serve as FIDE international arbiter for the tournament. Redman is a past president of the U.S. Chess Federation.

Redman said 10 players will participate in the tournament. Grandmaster and UTD team captain Yuri Shulman of Belarus, a graduate student in the university’s School of Management, won last year’s inaugural UTD tournament and, with a rating of 2573, is a slight favorite to win again.

Other participants in the competition will be Grandmaster Marcin Kaminski of Poland, a senior majoring in computer science; International Master Dmitry Schneider of the U.S., a freshman majoring in business administration; International Master Rade Milovanovic of the U.S., the UTD coach; FIDE Master Andrei Zaremba of the U.S., a junior majoring in electrical engineering; FIDE Master Andrew Whatley of the U.S., a senior majoring in economics and finance; FIDE Master Dennis Rylander of Sweden, a sophomore majoring in business administration; Jeffrey Ashton of the U.S., a junior who has not yet declared a major; Yekaterina Ushakova of Russia, a sophomore majoring in business administration; and Lee Gardner of the U.S., a freshman who has not yet declared a major.

The dates and times of the tournament rounds are as follows:

Round 1 – Friday, Oct. 25, 5 p.m.
Round 2 – Saturday, Oct. 26, 1 p.m.
Round 3 – Saturday, Oct. 26, 7 p.m.
Round 4 – Sunday, Oct. 27, 1 p.m.
Round 5 – Sunday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m.
Round 6 – Friday, Nov. 1, 5 p.m.
Round 7 – Saturday, Nov. 2, 1 p.m.
Round 8 – Saturday, Nov. 2, 7 p.m.
Round 9 – Sunday, Nov. 3, noon

For additional information about the tournament, please contact Luis Salinas of the UTD chess team at 972-883-2898 or las018400@utdallas.edu.