UMBC vs. NYU at 2008 Final Four at UMBCPresidents Freeman Hrabowski of UMBC and David Daniel of UTD hope to gain possession of the President's Cup at the 2008 Final Four. UTD won in 2008.
The President's Cup (informally known as the Final Four of College Chess) determines the U.S. college team chess champion. Hosted in part by the United States Chess Federation (USCF), the President's Cup is an annual invitational team championship, open to the top four U.S. schools from the most recent Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship (Pan-Am). It is run as a fixed-roster team round-robin tournament, scored by individual (not team) points. The President's Cup usually takes place in early Spring.
The President's Cup has taken place each year in various locations since it was founded in 2001 by Dr. Tim Redman with the financial support of University of Texas at Dallas president Dr. Franklyn Jenifer. Since 2011, the President's Cup has been sponsored in part by Booz Allen Hamilton. The event in 2020 was to be held in April but was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Final Four teams that qualified that year were Texas Tech, University of Texas at Dallas, Webster University, and Saint Louis University.
Rules
The governing body for the President's Cup is the College Chess Committee (CCC) of the USCF. The event is rated by the USCF and the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and played under the FIDE Laws of Chess. The CCC has established eligibility requirements for college chess, which apply to both the Pan-American Intercollegiate Championship and the President's Cup.
Each team comprises four players and up to two alternates from the same school campus. The official rules state: "The President’s Cup is a Team Round Robin scored by total individual points. In the event of a tie, the teams are declared Co-champions."
In cases where two or more teams finish with the same number of individual game points, they are officially recognized as co-champions. A tiebreak system is used only to determine which co-champion team is awarded the physical President’s Cup trophy. This procedure does not affect the official designation of champions, which is based solely on total individual points.
Significance
The winner of the President's Cup is considered the top chess team among U.S. post-secondary schools (colleges, universities, community colleges). By contrast, the Pan-Am determines the top post-secondary school in North American, Central America, South America, or the Caribbean. The winning school takes possession of the perpetual trophy, created in 2008 using funds from Sun Trust Bank, for one year.
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