Saturday, April 21, in the T-building, the MATC Chess Club did battle with The Marquette University Chess Club. The battle became intense as MATC’s Volodymyr Opryshchenko and Kyle Smith of Marquette, during the last minute of the first game, squared off so fast it was difficult to follow hand movement. One of the observers remarked how moves are normally recorded but this game went into light speed, making it un-recordable without video.  

In an email interview, Bob Holland, Chess Club Advisor, explained how chess clocks work. “Each player played two games (one as white, one as black), for a total of 10 games played.  Chess clocks were used with each player getting 45 minutes to make all of their moves. At the beginning of the game, the clock is started and white’s time starts counting down until he moves.  When white moves, he punches his clock and then black’s clock starts counting down, etc.  Players have two ways of losing.  Either by checkmate, or running out of time.”

The Saturday games produced a 6-4 win for Marquette with MATC fighting all the way and Opryshchenko and Smith getting the best game honor. Their game defined the term “blitz” chess.  Not only do players have to make good moves quickly, they also have to punch their clocks quickly. Everyone else in the room stopped what they were doing to watch this amazing exhibition of chess skill. After Volodymyr checkmated Kyle, everyone in the room gave these two players a standing ovation, according to Holland.Opryshchenko continued to win both of his games against Kyle Smith.  Olwatosin Awe won both his games against Joe Ebel. Marquette trailed in and won the remaining six games.   

The MATC Chess Club players are listed as:

Dominique Smith
Natallia Ryzhevich
Shawn Williams
Olwatosin Awe
Volodymyr Opryshchenko, Team Captain

The Marquette University players  are listed as:
John Woallney
Kyle Smith
John Zimmerman
Joe Ebel
Avinash Kumar, Team Captain
 
No rematch has been scheduled yet. This was an informal tournament and is not affiliated with the United States Chess Federation (USCF). As such, it doesn’t have any bearing on other tournaments. Holland further added, to play in USCF tournaments, all players must be USCF members. A trophy and game prizes were also awarded. Marquette regularly competes in state competition and remarked how well MATC played. The MATC Chess Club is hopeful to explore more opportunities to compete.  

The tournament parameters were mutually established by the team captains from each school.  The rest of the event details were worked out by MATC’s chess club President Alvin Atkins and chess club advisor Brian Spaeth.  Bob Holland is a co-advisor with Spaeth and served as the tournament director.