SLU Chess Team Qualifies for President's Cup

01/15/2025

The Saint Louis University Chess Team took home a third-place finish at the 2025 Intercollegiate Chess Championship. 

With the finish, SLU's A Team qualified for the President's Cup which takes the top 4 finishers of the Intercollegiate Chess Championship every year. The President's Cup will take place in April. SLU won the Cup in 2022. 

"I'm very proud of the team's performance," said Head Coach Varuzhan Akobian. "We were undefeated in 6 matches and in the final match, we won 4-0 on demand against Stanford's B-team which helped us qualify for the President's Cup."

Additionally, the SLU B Team, made up of all women, was the second-highest-finishing team of all women players. They competed against All-Female teams from Webster, Mizzou, and the University of Dallas. 

The SLU A Chess Team includes Grandmaster and team captain, Robby Kevlishvili, Grandmasters Batsuren Dambasuren and Nikolozi Kacharava, as well as International Master Tianqi Wang and National Master Shelev Oberoi.

Dambasuren's performance on Board 2, where he finished 5.5 points out of 6 games (5 wins, 1 draw), was the best performance of any player in the tournament.

The SLU Chess Team is led by Akobian and assistant coach, Grandmaster Darius Swiercz. 

"The team showed excellent team spirit and we're very excited to prepare for and play in the President's Cup/Final Four in April," Akobian said.