UTRGV’s team is the most balanced on paper in the CCL this season and with only 70 rating points separating their boards one and four, every member is a dangerous one.

Yale, on the other hand, is spearheaded by Checa on board one and has NMs Linden Lee and Siddharth Arun flanking the dangerous Maxim Yaskolko on board three.

A 2-2 draw out of the gates transpired between the two teams and, notably, it was a 4-0 sweep for the black pieces. IM Gleb Dudin’s victory over Yaskolko was perhaps the most impressive as he carved a hole in his opponent’s kingside in a Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation.

Our Game of the Day has been annotated by GM Rafael Leitao.

Round two is where the match opened up, and a 4-0 demolition by UTRGV placed Yale on the cusp of elimination. Even Yale’s board-one Checa, who possesses a FIDE rating of 2517, was dispatched by IM Jakub Fus after trying to set up an endgame fortress.

The top scorer for UTRGV, though, was Rodrigue-Lemieux, who registered a 3.5/4 score on Saturday. As one of the standouts for his team in the round-robin stage (9/12), the Canadian was able to outplay each of his opponents in the quarterfinals and guide his team to victory.

Dual 3-1 wins in the third and fourth rounds secured UTRGV’s spot in the semifinals where they will face UT Dallas in a state derby. 

SLU 12.5 – 3.5 CU

Hoping to forget their round-seven drubbing at the hands of Mizzou, SLU started cautiously and won their opening round by a score of 2.5-1.5.

In ominous signs, SLU’s GM Nikolas Theodorou was shockingly upset by the untitled Ze Wang, who walked his a-pawn up the board and punished his opponent for taking a laissez-faire approach to the game.

CU’s board two, FM Aristo Liu, has played an important role in his university’s team throughout the season; however, in the quarterfinals, he experienced the full force of SLU’s lineup and lost each of his games.

In round two, it was GM Batsuren Dambasuren who dished out a stark reminder of why SLU is one of the favorites to win the whole tournament.

Having scored 3.5-0.5 in this round, SLU found themselves firmly in the box seat with a 6-2 margin and kept the momentum rolling into round three. A 3-1 score consisting of two wins and two draws was enough to get the job done for SLU, and sadly Jacobson was unable to crack Bok and mount a comeback after winning an exchange for a pawn.

Flexing their borderline impervious squad, SLU rubbed salt into the wounds of CU’s team in the final round, notching a 3.5-0.5 score with only Jacobson able to hold out Theodorou. For SLU, the 12.5-3.5 result was a welcome return to the form that had seen them ascend to the top of the competition standings early in the season. 

Bok holds his team to a high standard: “We will have to play better next week.” 

Their greatest test yet, though, will come in next week’s semifinals, where a rematch with Mizzou will ultimately determine their fate in the competition. 

Interestingly, both semifinal matchups in the CCL will see teams from the same states (Texas and Missouri) play against each other meaning that a Texas-Missouri grand final is guaranteed.