IM Gabor Papp has just earned his 3rd and final GM norm! He is the 3rd Texas Tech Knight Raider in the past 6 months to become a GM (Davorin Kuljasevic and Gergely Antal).
Congratulations to GM Papp!! We are all very proud of you!
Gergely Antal (Senior Economics Major) finished 2nd at the College Tournament of Champions, the most prestigious national collegiate individual chess championship in the U.S. He won the same event in 2009.
July 2010
Rebecca Lelko (Freshman Math Major) won the 7th annual Susan Polgar Girl’s Invitational Rapid Championship, the most prestigious all-girls national event.
July 2010
SPICE and Texas Tech hosted the annual Susan Polgar Girl’s Invitational for the 3rd straight year. This is the most prestigious all-girls national chess event.
July 2010
Susan Polgar was named the Ambassador for Norway's bid for the 41st Chess Olympiad to be held in 2014.
June 2010(1st Knight Raider to earn Grandmaster title)
Davorin Kuljasevic (Graduate Finance Student) became the first Knight Raider in school history to earn the Grandmaster title, the highest title in chess. There are only about 1,000 Grandmasters worldwide.
June 2010
Gabor Papp (Senior Finance Major) earned his 2nd Grandmaster norm. He needs one more norm to earn the Grandmaster title, the highest title in chess.
May 2010
Davorin Kuljasevic (Graduate Finance Student) won the Croatia Cup as part of the Mladost Zagreb team. This is the most prestigious team championship in Croatia.
April 2010
The 13 active members of the A team, B team, and women's team gained nearly 1,100 rating points in just this short time! That is an average improvement of nearly 90 rating points per player! This success is a direct result of the world class chess training program of SPICE at Texas Tech.
April 2010
The Knight Raiders A team qualified for the Final Four in its first year. In spite of being the lowest seed by quite a big margin, the team finished 3rd in the country. No school has ever made the Final Four in its first attempt before. Susan Polgar became the first ever female head coach in collegiate chess to lead a men’s team to the Final Four.
March 2010
SPICE and Texas Tech hosted the 2nd annual SPICE Spring Invitational, the 2nd highest rated International Invitational Chess Tournament in the U.S. in 2010, only behind the SPICE Cup. Knight Raider Gergely Antal finished in a tie for 2nd. 13 year old Darwin Yang from Plano, Texas, earned his first International Master norm in this event. This event was covered by many local TV stations, newspaper, and the news reached out to more than 160 countries worldwide.
March 2010(1 city individual championship)
Members of the Knight Raiders chess teams captured the top 5 places at the annual Lubbock Open Championship, the most important annual local chess tournament in Lubbock. Gergely Antal finished 1st, Chase Watters and Rebecca Lelko tied for 2nd and 3rd, while Joshua Osbourn and Brian Cassidy tied for 4th.
February 2010
SPICE was featured as a part of the Texas Tech 2010 – 2020 Strategic Plan.
January 2010
Knight Raider Brian Cassidy tied for 1st at the fourth "Get Smart! Play Chess!" Winter Chess Championship in Lubbock.
December 2009(2 individual national titles – 1 team national title – Team made the Final Four)
The Knight Raiders A team tied for 2nd place in Division I competition at the 2009 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship held Dec. 27-30 on South Padre Island, and therefore qualified for the College Final Four. This is the most prestigious national collegiate team chess event in the U.S. It is the first time that Texas Tech has sent an A team.
Davorin Kuljasevic and Gergely Antal won the national individual honors as top performers on board 1 and 3 respectively. Gabor Papp finished 2nd for top performers on board 2.
The Knight Raiders B team won 1st place in Division IV competition at the same Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship.
November 2009(2 state championships – 1 individual and 1 team title)
The Knight Raiders A Team (Gergely Antal, Davorin Kuljasevic, Gabor Papp and Chase Watters) captured the Texas State Collegiate Chess Championship team title in Houston. This is the first time Texas Tech has sent an A team to the state championship.
The Knight Raiders A Team members Gergely Antal and Davorin Kuljasevic captured 1st and 2nd place respectively at the Texas Tech State Collegiate Chess Championship individual competition in Houston.
The Knight Raiders B Team (Zach Haskin, Josh Osbourn, Rebecca Lelko, Brett James, and Ananya Roy) captured 3rd place at the same Texas State Collegiate Chess Championship.
October 2009
SPICE and Texas Tech hosted the prestigious 3rd annual SPICE Cup, the highest rated international invitational tournament in U.S. history. The event was held at the Student Union Building. The news of the event reached over 160 countries worldwide.
October 2009
The Knight Raiders and SPICE broke a world record for an officially rated chess tournament at the lowest point on earth, at the bottom of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Knight Raiders A Team members Gergely Antal and Gabor Papp tied for 1st and 2nd place.
September 2009(1 regional individual chess championship)
The Knight Raiders A Team member Gergely Antal captured the prestigious 75th Annual Southwest Open title in Fort Worth with 245 players. Teammate Davorin Kuljasevic finished 2nd in the same event.
August 2009(1 national individual chess championship)
The Knight Raiders A Team member Gergely Antal captured the 2009 College Tournament of Champions in Indianapolis, the most prestigious national collegiate individual chess championship in the U.S.
Texas Tech Chess Player Earns Grandmaster Title Released: 6/30/2010 12:45 PM EDT Source: Texas Tech University
Newswise — A Texas Tech University Knight Raiders chess team member attained the chess world’s highest ranking by earning the final norm for a grandmaster title.
International Master Davorin Kuljasevic scored five wins and four draws at the 2010 Pula Open in Croatia to become the first Knight Raider to enter the elite ranks of the approximately 1,000 grandmasters worldwide.
The graduate finance student from Croatia now has the same ranking as legendary players Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov and Knight Raiders head coach Susan Polgar, noted Paul Truong, director of marketing for Texas Tech’s Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence.
“All the training and hard work by members of the Knight Raiders chess team with Susan Polgar during the year has paid off big time,” Truong said. “These players will also be wonderful ambassadors for Texas Tech and SPICE around the globe for years to come.”
In June, Davorin scored three wins and three draws to help his team, Mladost Zagreb, win the prestigious Croatian Cup Team Championship.
International Master Gabor Papp earned his second grandmaster norm in June at the Mitropa Cup in Switzerland. He needs one more norm to earn the grandmaster title, which Truong said he will try to earn by the end of summer.
