{"id":333,"date":"2026-03-26T15:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/specialcollections\/umbc50\/?page_id=333"},"modified":"2026-03-31T17:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:00:21","slug":"chess","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/home\/themes\/student-life\/chess\/","title":{"rendered":"Chess"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Black-and-white<\/a>
Chess Master Larry Kaufman by William Boyd, UARC Photos 09-01-0138<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

UMBC\u2019s fascination with chess began early in the campus history. A query was sent to\u00a0The Retriever<\/em>\u00a0in October 1967 asking “What can be done about organizing a chess club at UMBC?” By 1968, an intramural chess tournament was hosted by the Chess Club with three divisions resulting in a playoff of the three divisional winners. The tournament was expected to take about five weeks to conclude. In 1972, the Chess Club invited chess master Larry Kaufman, an MIT graduate who was ranked 16th in the nation, to play simultaneous games against UMBC Chess Club members and any others who wished to participate. Twenty-two contestants played against Kaufman on Wednesday, September 20, 1972 in simultaneous matches. Kaufman won all games except one draw against graduate student Mike Woodward, M.S. \u201975, biological sciences. Skip Boyd\u2019s photograph captures the intensity of the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Contact<\/a>
Chess Club Meeting Contact Sheet, UARC Photo 07-01-1452<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 1996, the UMBC Chess Team won the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship and nine more times between 1998 and 2012. The team also has the distinction of qualifying for The President\u2019s Cup (also known as the Final Four of College Chess) every year since the competition was founded in 2001, and the university has won the championship six times between 2003 and 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Large<\/a>
Chess trophy, 50UMBC-051<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UMBC\u2019s fascination with chess began early in the campus history. A query was sent to\u00a0The Retriever\u00a0in October 1967 asking “What can be done about organizing a chess club at UMBC?” By 1968, an intramural chess tournament was hosted by the Chess Club with three divisions resulting in a playoff of the three divisional winners. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":327,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-333","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/333\/revisions\/506"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.umbc.edu\/umbc50\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}