Webster University’s chess team made history earlier this month as the most successful collegiate chess program after topping the 2025 President’s Cup and winning its seventh national championship.
The competition, hosted by the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas), went down to the wire, but the Gorloks emerged triumphant by the barest of margins.
On the opening day of the tournament, Webster played UT Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) and UT Dallas. The match against UTRGV ended in a draw, while the Gorloks overcame the hosts 2.5-1.5. At the end of the day, Webster and Saint Louis University (SLU) were tied at the top with 4.5 points a piece. UTRGV followed with 4.0 and UT Dallas brought up the rear with 3.0.
In the final round the next day, Webster surpassed SLU with another narrow 2.5-1.5 win. However, UTRGV pulled off a 3.0-1.0 win over their fellow Texans – the tournament’s largest margin of victory – and reached parity with Webster at 7.0 points. With both teams tied at the top, they were named co-champions. But Webster, having won two of its three matches compared to UTRGV’s solitary win, was awarded the President’s Cup.
“It was a very tough tournament,” said Harsha Bharathkoti, who holds an international rank of 390, according to Chess.com. “We won because we had very good team spirit. When one guy lost or drew, other teammates won, and vice versa.”
Bharathakoti delivered an important win on board, one in the final round against SLU.
“I messed up in the first two rounds, but I won at the right moment,” Bharathakoti said. “It was crucial, so it was good.”
He added that his teammate Yasser Quesada Perez, who went undefeated and contributed 2.5 points to Webster’s total, was the team’s star player at the event.
This President’s Cup win marked a historic milestone for both the team and university.
“It was the first time winning the national championship for every member of our team, and a record win for Webster University, so it was special,” Bharathkoti said.
Only head coach Lê Quang Liêm — a grandmaster from Vietnam and the 2013 World Blitz Champion — had tasted President’s Cup glory before this. He has now contributed to six of Webster’s championships: two as a coach and four as a player.
The President’s Cup is the Final Four of the annual collegiate chess championships in the United States. To reach this stage, collegiate teams from across the continent compete in the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Championships, or the Pan-Ams. This year’s 71st edition of the tournament, held in Charlotte, North Carolina, in early January, had the largest turnout since 1976 with 91 participants.
The competition follows a round-robin format, with each team facing every other team once. Each team fields four players and has two reserves on standby. Each match has four boards, with each player facing their counterpart from the opposing team. A win accounts for one point, a draw earns half a point and a loss earns none. The team with the most points at the end of the round-robin is crowned national champion.
Webster’s Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) sent two teams to the 2025 Pan-Ams. The A team placed fourth and the B team finished 11th. The B team had tied for fifth in points but dropped six positions when the tiebreaker was applied. With a top-four finish, Webster’s A team joined UTRGV, SLU and UT Dallas in the President’s Cup, marking Webster’s 13th consecutive appearance in the final round.
Webster’s team featured four International Chess Federation grandmasters – the highest title in chess below world champion – including Bharathakoti, Quesada Perez, Lazaro Bruzon Batista and Emilio Cordova Daza. The two reserves were Anna Sargsyan, an international master and women’s grandmaster, and Annamaria Marjanovic, also a women’s grandmaster.
This seventh national title cements Webster’s place at the pinnacle of collegiate chess. A relative newcomer to the scene, the program was founded in 2012. The Gorloks have since taken the chess world by storm, winning national championships in 2013 through 2017, in 2023 and now in 2025. With 13 consecutive appearances in the President’s Cup, Webster now sits just behind the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which holds the record with 15 straight trips to the final four.
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