The team represents the Prague University of Economics and Business in the elite division of the world university chess Competition

The VŠE team of Jan Vykouk (NF), Martin Hollan (FFÚ), Ondřej Toman (FIS), Richard Mládek (FIS), Petr Hollan (FIS), Marek Karas (FFÚ), Martin Buločkin (FPH) and Alexandr Skalský (FFÚ) qualified for the top division of the Collegiate Chess League Spring 2024.

A total of 360 university teams will compete in all divisions of the Collegiate Chess League Spring 2024. It is therefore the biggest measurement of the strength of thousands of university chess players from all over the world. Awareness of the competition and its media coverage is supported by a partnership with the prestigious chess.com, which broadcasts online broadcasts of the games and presents the entire competition.

The elite division of this prestigious chess competition features eight of the best university teams from around the world. However, only two of them are European, besides the representative of the Czech Republic – our Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE), it is also the team of the National Technical University of Athens.

All other teams are from American universities – Saint Louis University, University of Missouri, Webster University, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, The University of Texas at Dallas and University of Chicago. They feature top players from all over the world who have earned college scholarships in the U.S. due to their chess achievements. These top teams have professional coaches and implementation teams, and of course, relevant budgets.

In the first round of the elite division this weekend, the VŠE team took on one of the hot favourites to win the overall Collegiate Chess League – the University of Missouri team. Four chess grandmasters entered the match for the American university – GM Grigory Oparin (originally from Russia), GM Mikhail Antipov (originally from Russia), GM Luka Budisavljevic (originally from Serbia) and WGM Beloslava Krasteva (originally from Bulgaria).

The VŠE team consisted of IM Jan Vykouk (NF) and FM Martin Hollan (FFU), FM Ondřej Toman (FIS) and FM Richard Mládek (FIS). In their debut in the elite division, the VŠE team finally lost to the University of Missouri after a long and even fight 7:9.

The next game of the elite division is this weekend, on Saturday 27th January the team will play Saint Louis University. This match will be live streamed, including commentators, at 20:00 CET on the YouTube channel chess.com- https://www.youtube.com/@chess/streams

More about the competition and live streams:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lJ97xxdNoI
https://www.chess.com/news/view/collegiate-chess-league-registration-spring-2024 –

In the gallery below you can see the individual representatives of our VŠE.