Our players are depressed

UMBC chess team, a perennial favorite, finishes fourth
Worst placement in team history in 10 years
By Peter Hermann, The Baltimore Sun
7:10 p.m. EDT, April 3, 2011

The renowned chess team from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County came in last on Sunday in one of the nation’s premier college tournaments, the first time in a decade that the school did not finish in either first or second place.

Texas Tech University took top place after a series of round robin games in what is called the President’s Cup, held this year in Tyson’s Corner, Va. The tournament is regarded as the “Final Four” of college chess. “Our players are depressed,” said Alan T. Sherman, the director of the program.

UMBC has dominated the world of college chess for the past decade, giving the relatively small college a place on a prominent stage, winning six of the past 10 Final Four tournaments. This year’s team was led by Sergey “The Stealth” Erenburg, an international grand chess master, along with grand masters Leonid “Chief” Erenburg and Giorgi Margvelashvili and international master Sasha “Plaplan” Kaplan.

Full article here.