The Saint Louis University (SLU) women’s chess team won the inaugural U.S. Chess Federation’s Women’s President’s Cup on March 24, achieving a perfect record in the tournament and claiming the first national championship for women in this event.
The victory marks a significant milestone for SLU and collegiate chess, as it is the first time a separate national championship competition was held for women after 25 years of the President’s Cup. The Billiken women’s team won all three matches: defeating Webster University and University of Texas Rio Grande Valley with scores of 3.5-0.5 each, and overcoming University of Texas at Dallas with a score of 3-1.
“This was a huge success for our women’s team,” SLU head chess coach Varuzhan Akobian said. “We became the 2026 national champions in dominating fashion. SLU Women’s team won every single match convincingly without a single loss.”
The championship squad included Grandmaster Thalia Cervantes, Grandmaster Gabriela Antova, International Master Sila Caglar from Turkey, and FIDE Master Dhyana Patel from India. Akobian said that all four players performed exceptionally well at the tournament, highlighting Patel as a standout by winning all her matches while Caglar and Antova each scored 2.5 points out of three matches, and Cervantes secured two points on Board 1.
On the men’s side, SLU finished second behind national champion University of Missouri; their lineup featured Grandmasters Aryan Chopra, Viktor Gazik (who scored 2.5 points), Nikolozi Kacharava, and International Master Tianqi “Steve” Wang.
SLU supports community engagement through service programs addressing social needs according to its official website. The university also extends its educational reach internationally with a campus in Madrid, Spain according to its official website. Offering more than one hundred undergraduate programs along with over one hundred graduate options according to its official website, SLU maintains Jesuit traditions emphasizing care for the whole person according to its official website and pursues truth for humanity’s benefit according to its official website.
