Intercollegiate chess before the Pan Am

Early years

The Pan-Am started in 1946.

However, there had been a team event for American schools only before World War II. One noteworthy result from this earlier event, from 1931–32, had City College of New York winning, with Reuben Fine on board one and Sidney Norman Bernstein on board two; the team scored 31.5 out of a possible 32 points.^[7]

From 1946 to 1964, the Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Championship was held every even year, with a Pan-Am Intercollegiate Individual Championship held every odd year from 1945 to 1963.

American schools from the northeast and midwest regions dominated both the hosting and winning of the championship. Columbia University won three titles, the University of Chicago won two, and CCNY won two during this period. The first eight tournaments averaged about a dozen teams taking part. From 1962 to 1967, participation doubled to an average of about 25 teams per year.

Annual competition begins

With increased interest, annual team competition began in 1964. In 1965, 1967, and 1969, the tournament was an individual-and-team competition, that is, players entered as individuals, but if a school had four or more players entered, the four highest of its students' scores were added to make a team score. The 1965 event saw the first non-American winner, the University of Toronto. The first non-American school to host was Canada's McGill University at Montreal in 1969, and McGill also won the event that year. From 1968 to 1971, interest doubled again, to nearly 50 teams per year.

The Fischer boom

During the 1960s and 1970s, the level of participation in the Pan-Am grew about tenfold, as one of the effects of Bobby Fischer's chess career, culminating in the World Chess Championship. Attendance averaged nearly 108 teams per year from 1972 to 1978; the highest turnout was 123 teams (520 players) in 1975. Nick Paleveda who became the Florida State Chess Champion persuaded The University of South Florida to offer the first chess scholarship to Future Grandmasters Larry Christiansen and Ron Henley (both recruited with chess scholarships) anchored the 1976 championship team from the University of South Florida Tampa, the first southern school to win.

Three straight titles

The University of Toronto was the first school to win three straight outright titles, from 1980 to 1982; this feat was repeated by Harvard University from 1988–90. Rhode Island College, led by former US High School Chess Champions James Thibault and Sandeep Joshi, rolled to a convincing victory in 1985. The winning 1983 team from Yale University featured 3 future US Chess Champions in Joel Benjamin, Michael Wilder, and Inna Izrailov.

From 1979 to 1986, an average of 57 teams took part. Future US Chess Champion Grandmaster Patrick Wolff led Yale University to victory in 1987. Harvard University won four titles in five years from 1986 to 1990, either won outright or shared.

Prior to 1986 the Pan Ams were organized by the Intercollegiate League of America (ICLA). The United States Chess Federation took over the organization after the 1986 Pan-Am in Providence, Rhode Island.

Kamsky plays in Pan-Am but Vivek Rao shines

Chicago 1991 saw a reigning U.S. champion appear in the Pan-Am for the first time, when 17-year-old Soviet émigré Gata Kamsky, was first board for Brooklyn College. Kamsky lost a sensational game to Vivek Rao of the winning University of Illinois team. Rao had previously led Harvard in winning the 1988, 1989 and 1990 Pan Ams.

Chess Scholarships and Recent Years

The 1990s saw two important events that influenced college chess: the fall of the Iron Curtain sent a flood of very strong eastern European and former Soviet players to the Americas, and several schools began offering major chess scholarships.

The University of South Florida offered chess scholarships in 1976 to two young players, but abandoned the experiment after winning the 1976 Pan-Am. Subsequently, Rhode Island College offered chess scholarships, and eventually won the Pan-Am in 1985. The Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) recruited grandmasters and eventually offered chess scholarships. BMCC won the Pan-Am in 1993, 1994, and 1997. In contrast to those short-lived programs, the chess scholarship programs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) have taken root and continue to the present day.

In 2009, two more Texas schools fielded strong teams: University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) and Texas Tech University; both offered chess scholarships. The 2010 Final Four was the strongest to date: it featured UMBC (average USCF rating 2559), UTD (2574), UTB (2598), and Texas Tech (2429). In 2012, Webster University and Lindenwood have emerged as contenders.

The 2019 Pan-Am was the strongest ever: the 63 teams included 33 Grandmasters, 20 International Masters, players from 40 FIDE federations, and 10 teams with average US Chess ratings over 2500. It was the largest Pan-Am from 1982 until 2023. ^[8]

The 2020–2021 Pan-Am was held online at Lichess.org.

The 2023 Pan-Am was held January 5-8, 2023, in Seattle. It was won by the A team of Webster University. ^[9]

University

Cup winners

Individual winners