Just as collegiate basketball players compete in March Madness, college chess players are about to begin their own playoff bracket in the Collegiate Chess League (CCL). The eight Division One teams have just completed the seven-week round-robin season, and six teams advance to the Playoffs.
Spring 2026 Regular Season Standings
The Top Seeds: SLU and UTD
The defending champions, St. Louis University (SLU), narrowly earned the top seed before entering the Playoffs. They recovered well from an early loss to the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) to win their remaining matches. UTD, which had started strong, had just one poor match, but their 11-5 defeat at the hands of SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRM) was enough to drop them out of first place by the narrowest of margins, a half point in the tiebreaks behind SLU.
Fortunately, both teams will earn a first-round bye, and if they win their next matches, they will meet in a repeat of last year’s Finals. That result wouldn’t be surprising. Each team features an all-GM lineup, which can dominate any given match.
The Other Contenders
The third seed is the fall 2024 champions from the University of Missouri – Columbia (Mizzou). They had a relatively down season, scoring 4/7, with losses against the top two teams. However, a team led by GM Aryan Tari, which can bring at least two more grandmasters to every match, can never be taken lightly.Â
The fourth seed will be SRM, which dominated their match against UTD, handing them their only defeat of the season. GM Pranesh M, scored a perfect 4-0, a remarkable performance.
Another team with four match victories is the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (URTGV). They were the only team besides the top two seeds to win their match against Mizzou during the regular season, using a shocking 3.5-0.5 final round to steal a 9-7 victory. All three of their GMs, Avila Santiago Pavas, Gleb Dudin, and Jose Cardoso won at the critical moment to secure a come from behind victory.
The final playoff team is Texas Tech University. They may be underdogs in the Playoffs, without a grandmaster on the team, but their crew of IMs and an NM should not be taken lightly. They won convincing victories over Lviv State University of Physical Culture and the University of Virginia to earn their spot in the Playoffs.
Playoff Format
In this weekend’s quarterfinal matches, SRM will take on UTRGV and Mizzou will face Texas Tech. The winner of the former match advances to a semifinal against SLU, while the latter will face UTD.
The Collegiate Chess League is the premier online chess competition for college students.
Who do you expect to see in the Semifinals? Let us know in the comments!
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