When the Trojan Chess Club members first arrived at the 2024 Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, they had no idea they would return as champions. The players knew the three USC teams were good, but competition was stiff with USC’s A team outranked by four competing groups. However, USC players’ skill and tactics led them to victory, with their A team winning first place in its section, their all-women B team tying for first in the women’s category and USC receiving the tournament’s “Best Dressed” award.

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The pan-American chess tournament features teams of four competing against each other for first place. Each team member is assigned to a “board,” ranging from board one to board four based on their skill level. Thus, when USC faced an opposing school, USC’s board one played against the opposing team’s board one, and so forth. USC’s Vishesh Agrawal, a graduate studying computer science, scored the most points out of all third-board players, earning the Trojan Chess Club another first place trophy.

While the chess club meets weekly during the fall and spring semesters, team members largely practiced against artificial intelligence to prepare for the tournament as it fell right after winter recess. Jadon Gaertner, the club’s president and C-team player as well as a senior majoring in economics and mathematics, said that the team’s preparation often lasted until right before they were about to face their opponent. 

“A lot of [our practice] is preparing for the opening,” Gaertner said. “In tournaments, where games can last four to five hours, maybe you’ll know who your opponent is a couple hours before the round. There’s a good chance you can find your opponent online and figure out what openings they like to play. Maybe you can catch them off guard. That’s a big part of preparation for us.” 

The tournament consisted of two games per day with five hours allocated per game. While chess is by nature a solitary game, Gaertner said that the teammates would often have breakfast together, get lunch after their matches and bring food to any teammate whose game was going longer than anticipated. The team would also get dinner together after the day’s matches, and they planned a specific day for the teammates to all wear suits to the competition. 

The USC team went into the competition with a slightly different strategy than their opponents. To qualify for the U-1800 division, the average of the four teammates’ ratings must be below 1800. The Pan-American tournament used player’s United States Chess Federation ratings, which are calculated based on how they perform against other ranked opponents in official games. Therefore, many teams elected to choose first, second and third boards who had ratings in the 2000s, and a fourth board with a significantly lower rating to drop the average. 

USC’s team was much more balanced, with scores ranging from 1900-1600. The composition of its team ensured that Tathagat Pal, the A team’s fourth board and a master’s student studying electrical engineering, consistently outranked his opponents, which he said played a key role in the team’s strategy. 

“If I won the round, it would take off the pressure on them to win: Even if all three [other] boards draw, we win the match.” Pal said. “My role was crucial to support my other teammates — my games, per se, were not that hard given my level. But that confidence that a team needs is what matters.”

In order for the team’s strategy to work, USC’s top three boards had to consistently draw against higher-ranked opponents. Agrawal, the A team’s third board, said this was made possible by each team member’s strategic approach to their games.

“All the players brought different strengths to the team: Our board two was very solid and positional, I was very aggressive in my game, so I think that’s what’swhich was required for winning … [and] board one was complicating the games enough to ensure that the other player who is much higher ranked can be beat easily,” Agrawal said. 

Normally, the winners of the Pan-American do not know if they won until after they have returned to their hotel rooms and the judges have finished the official score count. However, Pal said USC’s A team was far enough ahead by the end of the sixth round that they realized no other team could catch up. 

“We literally were jumping in the corridors and shouting, and the security guards came to us and they were like, ‘Calm down, calm down.’ And we were like, ‘We just won the tournament! We can’t be calm!’” Pal said. 

Evan Loo, the A team’s board two and a junior majoring in computer science, said that while winning the tournament made the trip all the more exciting, one of the highlights of past and present competitions with the USC team was its energy and “USC mentality” that allowed the team to enjoy the event regardless of their score. 

“We’ve struggled quite a bit [in past tournaments] … but we did win ‘Best Dressed’ last year as well, which is kind of the vibe for our club,” Loo said. “We do all the crazy stuff and we’re a super high morale team … our general motto has always been to have very good team spirit so that even if we don’t win, we’ll be able to have a great time.”