For the first time since 1995, Harvard took part in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Chess Championship. Five players ventured down to Dallas, Texas to compete in the annual event. At board one was FIDE Master Jacob Chudnovsky '01. Life Master Woody McClelland '00 was at board two, Nick Proudfoot '00 was board three, Matt Bluestone '01 was board four, and Charles Riordan '01 was the alternate. Although we did not play as well as we could have, the Harvard team still managed to finish in third place on tiebreaks with a respectable score of 4-2, behind only the University of Maryland at Baltimore County "A" (which finished a perfect 6-0 with an average team rating of over 2500!), and the University of Pennsylvania, which finished in clear second with 4.5-1.5 with a dramatic victory over Stanford in the final round.

Although Harvard's two losses did not come against teams with extremely high ratings (NYU and Stanford, each by a score of 2.5-1.5), the performance of those teams, combined with the lopsided nature of our victories enabled us to beat out University of Chicago "A", Worcester Polytechnical Institute, and Stanford University on tiebreaks.

The stars of the team were undoubtedly Nick and Jacob. Nick finished with an outstanding 5-1 score on board three, and only FM Eugene Perelshteyn's 6-0 board three score for UMBC "A" prevented him from taking the top board three prize. Jacob finished a solid 4.5-1.5 on board one, and in spite of not playing his best chess, still managed to take the top board one prize on tiebreaks over FM David Arnett of UPenn, and 1997 World Junior Champion (!!) GM Tal Shaked of UMBC "A". On board four, the tandem of Matt and Charles combined to score 4.5-1.5. Charles was very unlucky in his game against NYU, as a time scramble resulted in the shattering of his winning position. He scored 1/2. Matt played very well, scoring 3.5/4 in the matches he played, and was the only board four to defeat Kit-Sun Ng of University of Toronto "B", who won the board four prize with a score of 5-1. Last (but not least?), we get to the infamous board two. Although I had good positions in every one of my games, two of them got away, resulting in critical losses against NYU and Stanford when even a draw would have prevented us from losing those matches. However, I was able to win the other four games, including a victory over Peter Minear of WPI (who then won his next five games to take the top board two prize with 5-1!!) and finished with a score of 4-2.

Having had to organize the transportation, hotel accomodations, and funding for the Harvard team, I would like to express my most sincere thanks to everyone who made the sacrifice to represent Harvard in this event, as it was a major time committment, not withstanding the miscommunications, late flights, and loss of rating points (for some) :). Hopefully we will be able to reload for next year's championship in Toronto!

Games from this event should be available sometime in the near future.

(15) Worcester Polytechnical Institute        (5) Harvard University

Ben Dean-Kawamura (2139)              0-1     FM Jacob Chudnovsky (2403)
Peter Minear (2079)                   0-1     Woody McClelland (2311)
Max Pistilli (1679)                   0-1     Nick Proudfoot (2199)
Donald Asher (1175)                  0F-1F    Charles Riordan (1955)

(5) Harvard University                    (14) New York University

FM Jacob Chudnovsky (2403)        1/2     Dmitri Leykekhman (2206)
Woody McClelland (2311)           0-1     Gregor Blekherman (2186)
Nick Proudfoot (2199)             1-0     Dimitry Karlin (1578)
Charles Riordan (1955)            0-1     Marcos Copistran (Unr.)

(12) University of Toronto "C"         (5) Harvard University

Stephen Redden (1934)          1/2     FM Jacob Chudnovsky (2403)
Edwin Wong (1886)              0-1     Woody McClelland (2311)
Robert Roller (1928)           0-1     Nick Proudfoot (2199)
Andrew McMillan (1936)         0-1     Matt Bluestone (2036)

(5) Harvard University                    (7) Stanford University

FM Jacob Chudnovsky (2403)        1-0     Adrian Keatinge-Clay (2257)
Woody McClelland (2311)           0-1     Etan Ilfeld (2257)
Nick Proudfoot (2199)             0-1     Michael Aigner (2144)
Matt Bluestone (2036)             1/2     Erik Stuart (1984)

(10) University of Toronto "B"         (5) Harvard University

Tom Samson (2027)              0-1     FM Jacob Chudnovsky (2403)
Bernd Hahn (Unr.)              0-1     Woody McClelland (2311)
Heru Riwanto (2074)            0-1     Nick Proudfoot (2199)
Kit-Sun Ng (1856)              0-1     Matt Bluestone (2036)

(5) Harvard University                    (13) UMBC "B"

FM Jacob Chudnovsky (2403)        1/2     Oxana Tarassova (2117)
Woody McClelland (2311)           1-0     Derrick Longo (2039)
Nick Proudfoot (2199)             1-0     David Shin (1835)
Matt Bluestone (2036)             1-0     Daniel Malkiel (1636)