Caltech and MIT to Face-off in Major Internet Chess Match

PASADENA, Calif.— Caltech's top chess players will compete in their first intercollegiate match of the year when they face MIT's chess team on Sunday, March 2. The match will be held on the Internet Chess Club, the world's largest online chess community, and will represent the first Internet chess match ever to take place between Caltech and MIT.

Team members will each play a single game in which they have only sixty minutes to make all of their moves. This face-off between two of the strongest chess teams in the nation is likely to be very closely contested.

Over President's Day weekend, part of the eight-player fledgling Caltech team unexpectedly took the title in the prestigious US Amateur Team West Chess Championship, thus becoming the first collegiate chess team to win the event in recent history. Caltech Chess Club president Patrick Hummel proudly claims, "Although we are a relatively new team, there are very few collegiate teams in the United States that have higher rating averages than Caltech's team, as rated by the United States Chess Federation. The fact that we're a new team has little to do with how strong we are."

All those interested are invited to watch the Caltech team play in the ITS computer lab (214 Steele), on the Caltech campus, from 6 to 8 p.m. Information about chess and the club will be available.

Caltech's Chess Club was founded at the beginning of the current academic year, and it has been meeting on a weekly basis since. For more information, please contact Patrick Hummel at hummel@its.caltech.edu, or visit the club web page at http://www.its.caltech.edu/~citchess/.

Contact: Deborah Williams-Hedges (626) 395-3227 debwms@caltech.edu

Visit the Caltech Media Relations Web site at: http://pr.caltech.edu/media

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