Out in Beinecke Plaza recently, under a bright sun and the intent stares of more than 100 people, you could cut the tension with a knight. Or a hanging rook.
After two weekends of strategic gambits, defensive feints, and go-for-broke blitzing, a four-player team from Berkeley College survived a late surge by the squad from Timothy Dwight to claim victory in the inaugural Yale Chess Cup tournament.
“One move left … and it’s made!” shouted special guest Levy “GothamChess” Rozman, the highly popular chess influencer who provided color commentary for the final matches. “Berkeley wins three to one! Three to one!”
The April 24 final capped a full slate of tournament events organized by Yale sophomore Arthur Guo (himself a certified chess grandmaster) and Trumbull College. The weekend before, teams from each residential college gathered in the Trumbull College dining hall to vie for a spot in the finals (thanks, in part, to the efforts of Kory Evasick, the dining hall’s general manager).
Standing during the “blitz” games, (left) Arthur Guo and (right) Levy Rozman, a.k.a. GothamChess.
Prior to the final, Guo and Rozman displayed their chess prowess by taking on waves of challengers simultaneously in a series of quick “blitz” games. (Rozman, who has more than 7 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, also spoke at a college tea in the Trumbull College common room that drew a capacity crowd.)
“The whole point is to have a fun, intramural competition among undergraduates that taps into the popularity of chess,” Guo said. “To see everyone’s faces light up, whether there’s a blunder or a winning move, is awesome. And Levy has been so gracious with his time.”
Indeed, Rozman spent hours playing chess with students — and winning — on Beinecke Plaza. They seemed to enjoy the challenge.
My game was good, but I left my queen hanging and he methodically took me down.
“It’s always fun to play someone of that caliber,” said Will Denton, a research assistant in radiology and biomedical imaging at Yale School of Medicine. “My game was good, but I left my queen hanging and he methodically took me down. It was a lot of fun.”
Throughout the afternoon, Rozman and Guo turned heads as they faced off against groups of 10 players at a time — and, good-naturedly, took them to school in the ways of chess. They kidded, cajoled, and encouraged their opponents, moving from board to board at tables set up on the plaza.
At one point, Rozman left his queen hanging. He shook his head and smiled, before telling the student, “Listen, you’re still totally getting obliterated here, but you got my queen.”
The crowd of onlookers around the tables grew three-persons deep. New players cycled in and out in waves.
“This was amazing,” said Rachel Foxman, a first-year student from West Hartford, Connecticut, who described herself as being a “near-beginner” at chess. She took up the game during the pandemic and became a fan of GothamChess videos. “I’ve never played in a competition, so I was hesitant about participating in the Yale Chess Cup tournament, but it was really cool.”
This is how chess is meant to be played. Person to person, in a friendly setting with an excited audience.
Jo Ni, a first-year student from Charlotte, North Carolina, said chess is a bit like playing violin in an orchestra. “You have to visualize what you are doing and predict what other people are trying to do.”
Did that help her chess game? “No, I got absolutely destroyed. But that doesn’t matter.”
And then came the four-game finals, pitting Berkeley (Raymond Zhang, Noah Ripke, Nathan Abebe, and Alan Zhong) against Timothy Dwight (Greg Wolf, Allen Huang, David Sadka, and Nevin Tan).
Berkeley took the first game … and the second game as well. “Holy moly, that might be a fantastic move,” Rozman said, as the crowd inched closer around the players.
But Timothy Dwight regrouped to win games three and four. “We have a playoff!” Guo announced. “A four-game playoff! And all four games will be played at once.”
As the competition built to its climax, D.S. Fahmeed Hyder, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, professor of radiology and biomedical imaging at the Yale School of Medicine, head of Trumbull College — and a chess fan for many years — stood amid the throng and felt a swell of pride.
“This is how chess is meant to be played,” Hyder said. “Person to person, in a friendly setting with an excited audience.”
