Temple Chess Team Faces Off with Yale University in First Mini Tournament

TEMPLE CHESS TEAM ENTERS THE PLAYING FIELD Temple’s newest chess team readies for its first tournament in January

December 4, 2020 / Philadelphia, PA — Temple University’s Chess Club is hosting a chess tournament between Temple’s new chess team and Yale University. This small tournament will be the first competitive event for the Temple Chess Team in this academic year.

The Temple Chess Team will consist of four players. The list below will display each player’s name, username and Rapid chess rating: Jeffery Kunnel, username: wikipedia1288 with a rating of 2452; Guga Berduli, username: burduliguga with a rating of N/A; Reece Betancourt, username: rbspyro with a rating of 1503; and Andrew Kahn, username: AK_scrublord with a rating of 1417.

The tournament will be held virtually on January 9 at 9:00am via chess.com; the tournament can be accessed through the Temple Chess Club’s discord. This will be a Swiss-formatted tournament with each player being assigned a board number based on their overall rating. The highest-rated competitor on each team will receive a board number of “1” and the lowest a “4.” Each competitor will play opponents based on their board number. The time control will be 5 minutes for each player with a equaling a total of four rounds.

The matchup against Yale University will be a challenge for the Temple Chess Team, but this is not stopping its optimism and excitement.

“Even though we may be viewed as underdogs in this friendly match, we have the capability, each of us and as a team, to out-perform personal and team expectations and even beat this strong Ivy League chess team, “states Jeffery Kunnel.

Although this is the first tournament of the school year, and a small tournament at that, it will provide valuable experience for the newly formed chess team. This tournament will also open many new doors for the Temple Chess Club in respect to entering the competitive world of chess. ## #