Chess Champs: Conn takes first place in the small college category at Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship

The Connecticut College Chess Team did it again at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, taking home first place in the Top Four-Year Small College category, which includes schools with fewer than 5,000 students, for the second year in a row.

Team President Adithya “Adi” Saranathan ’26, Will Mears ’24 and Eldritch Williams ’27 represented Conn at the competition, which this year took place at the McAllen Convention Center in McAllen, Texas.

“One of the best aspects of these tournaments is that we get the opportunity to meet with collegiate chess players from all over the country and make new friends,” said Saranathan, a government and statistics/data science double major from Los Angeles, California. “Our team became very well acquainted with the University of Pittsburgh’s team, as we had matched up against them last year and Will became friends with a couple of their players during last year's tournament.”

Saranathan’s standout moment took place in the first round, against Sacred Heart University, when he defeated a player who was more than 500 rating points above him. “This was my biggest classical win to date by rating and I was thrilled,” Saranathan said. “Over the past year, I’ve played over 5,000 chess matches on chess.com and have worked on puzzles and getting back into the game competitively, so I felt as though I was undoubtedly better this year than last year.”

Mears, a double major in math and computer science from Andover, Massachusetts, served as team captain at the Pan-Ams and brought his trademark sense of humor to both the competition and the downtime. He said, “We mainly hung out with the UPitt team and found an incredible Italian restaurant to go to. The most memorable part of the tournament, I think, was our flight ordeal on the way home. Eldritch ended up having to stay two extra nights because of some wind storm, and my original flight was delayed five hours.”

He added, “Adi won games this year, which was a big step in the right direction. I had the same record as last year. I spent most of the time during my last two semesters playing chess instead of doing much of anything else, and that led to me becoming better in pretty much every aspect of the game.”

Williams, from New York City, said his babysitter taught him to play chess when he was 3 or 4, and then chess was a required class in his elementary school. By his account, he was fairly relaxed during the tournament.

“During our fourth round I took a nap during the match. I was tired and had at least two and a half hours [of downtime]. Then I beat my opponent.”

The Pan-Am competition was founded in 1946 and is governed by the College Chess Committee of the United States Chess Federation. It features participants from colleges and universities in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean. This is the fourth year a team from Conn has attended.

“We’re looking forward to going again next year,” Saranathan said.