Comeuppance for the Ivies

"They should be legitimate students."

The heads of the well-funded programs defend their efforts, arguing that the scholarships reward intellectual achievement and that the recruits help to build interest in chess on and off campus. "I would like to encourage more schools to have more chess programs and not reduce what we have," said UT Dallas's program director, James Stallings.

That said, the directors openly relish their victories. UT Dallas's Yugoslav-born coach, Rade Milovanovic, had been in the United States only a year when the team won some of its first big matches in 1999. "The director told me, 'The [college] president is extremely satisfied we beat Harvard and Yale.' I don't understand this at the time, but later I understand it when I knew more about college life here," he said.

For all the perks at the flush programs, not all promising players leap at the scholarships, figuring that they are better off getting the most prestigious degrees they can since few can make a living from chess.

This was evident at a second tournament at the hotel this week, for younger players. The winner gets a nearly full-tuition scholarship from UMBC.

As they paced the hallway, the parents of Yang Dai, a 13-year-old from Fairfax County and the fourth-ranked of 24 players competing, said that the prize would be an "honor" but that they doubt their daughter would want to attend UMBC. A few hours later, the ponytailed Yang knocked off a 17-year-old rival.

At the collegiate contest, another clash was looming in the week's final rounds between UT Dallas and UMBC. UMBC's director, Alan Sherman, conceded that UT Dallas looked stronger this time. But come March, he'd have back his best player, a grandmaster who took time off to advise Veselin Topalov, one of the two contestants in the recent world championship match in Russia.

And Sherman will have a new hot prospect on board: Sergey Erenburg, a 23-year-old recently recruited on full scholarship from Israel. "It's new blood," Sherman said.