Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship

The Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship is the leading intercollegiate team competition of chess, held in the continents of North and South America. The Pan-Am was established in 1946 and is held annually. The event is hosted by the College Chess Committee of the United States Chess Federation. It usually takes place in December. From 1946 to 1964, the Pan-Am was held every even year. It usually takes place in the United States but has been hosted in Canada four times- in 1969, 1971, 1984 and 1999. For many years before 1996, high school teams were also allowed to compete in the Pan-Am Intercollegiate. At the 2012 Pan-Am, the CCC approved that all cash rewards at the Pan-Am Intercollegiate would be forbidden. The greatest turnout in the Pan-Am was 123 teams (520 players) in 1975. The University of Toronto was the first school to win three straight unconditional titles from 1980 to 1982. In 1965, 1967, and 1969, the contest was an "individual-and-team competition", that is, players entered as individuals. If a school registered four or more players, the four highest of its students' scores were added to make a team score. The University of Maryland and Baltimore County has the record for the longest winning streak- for five years (1998-2002). Pan-Am Intercollegiate Championship is open to any team comprising of four players and a maximum of two replacements from the same post-secondary school (college, university, community college) in North America, South America, Central America, or the Caribbean. Many of the top US chess players have participated in this event. Grand-Master Larry Christiansen and Grand-Master Ron Henley from the University of South Florida, future US champions Grand-Master Benjamin, Grand-Master Wilder, and Inna Izrailov from Yale University are a few notable players who participated in the tournament. The 1991 tournament had witnessed a remarkable event: Gata Kamsky, the reigning US champion and one of the best chess professionals in the world at the time, played in the event, representing Brooklyn College. But the uber-strong Gata lost a dramatic game to Vivek Rao, from the winning team the University of Illinois.