The SPICE warriors win SW Collegiate Championship

L to R: GM Elshan Moradiabadi, GM Denes Boros, IM-elect Faik Aleskerov, GM Andre Diamant, IM Vitaly Neimer, GM Anatoly Bykhovsky at Dallas Love Airport

The Texas Tech SPICE - Knight Raiders have just captured the 2012 SW Collegiate Championship in Dallas, Texas. Hometown team and top seed UT Dallas finished second while UT Brownsville finished third. Texas A&M finished in a distance fourth.

This is a surprise victory for the Knight Raiders as two of the team members (Grandmasters Andre Diamant and Denes Boros) were in emergency care Friday morning shortly before leaving for Dallas. This was not the end of the story. After arriving to the event on Friday evening, another Knight Raider, Grandmaster Elshan Moradiabadi did not feel well.


At Lubbock Airport

In spite of the serious health issue, the players fought very hard as true warriors for the prestigious title. At the end, they topped all their rivals to earn another major title for the Texas Tech and SPICE.

Lubbock sees excellent results at the Texas State Championship

Lubbock sees excellent results at the Texas State Championship
Posted: February 19, 2011 - 12:08am

Nearly 1,400 top players across our state came to Houston last weekend to compete in the 2011 Texas State Scholastic and Southwest Regional Collegiate Championships, the largest tournament in Texas this year. In the Collegiate Championship, Texas Tech Knight Raiders Andre Diamant and Anatoly Bykhovsky, both grandmasters, finished in a tie for third place. Andre took third on tiebreak, while Anatoly finished fourth. The Knight Raiders A team finished in second place overall.

Tom Polgar, 11, one of the youngest members of the Texas Tech Knight Raiders Chess Club and a sixth-grader at Evans Middle School, captured the first-ever state chess title for his school. Tom scored five wins and two draws to tie for first place in the middle school championship section.

Since 2006, in addition to the latest victory in Houston, Tom has won or tied for first in 10 other major chess championships, which include two USCF National Championships (2006 second-grade champion, 2008 K-3 champion), three SP National Open Championships (2007 K-2 champion, 2009 K-5 champion, and 2010 K-5 champion), four SP World Open Championships (2007 under 11 champion, 2008 under 11 champion, 2009 under 14 champion, and 2010 under 14 champion), and NY State Scholastic Championship (2006 K-1 champion). He has also been ranked No. 1 in the United States for his age group in the past.

Source: http://lubbockonline.com/