March 29–30, 2025 — The Hart House Chess Club proudly represented the University of Toronto in a thrilling intercollegiate chess showdown against the University of Waterloo’s Chess Club. Played across 18 boards, the competition showcased a wide spectrum of talent—from rising amateur players to International Masters.
After two days of intense play, the University of Toronto emerged victorious with a narrow edge, scoring 236.5 points to Waterloo’s 195.5 points.
Tournament Format
The event followed a two-day team format:
- Day 1 featured blitz and rapid rounds. Players were divided into three pools of six, with pools competing in a double-round Scheveningen-style blitz tournament (12 games total), followed by 2 rapid games.
- Day 2 concluded with 4 additional rapid games per player.
Meals were also part of the experience—Hart House catering on Day 1 and pizza on Day 2 fueled the competitors throughout the weekend.
Individual RESULTS
University of Toronto
- Blitz Top Performer: Manuel Drehwald — 11/12 points
- Top Rapid Performers: Max England, Nicholas Vettese, Mark Li, and Bingfei Wang — 5/6 points each
University of Waterloo
- Top Blitz Performer: Christopher Xiang — 8/12 points
- Top Rapid Performers: William Ratelband and Cody Ruan — 5/6 points each
See below for the original event post and details. Photos of the event are available here.
The Hart House Chess Club (University of Toronto) and University of Waterloo Chess Club have agreed to an inter-university match between the clubs from March 29th – March 30th, 2025. As two leading university hubs for chess in Ontario, this match will see two schools battle it out for school pride and glory. The tournament is a Team Match with Scheveningen pairings, and players will play only against players from opposing schools. There will be 18 players per team, and three pools per team. The tournament is a Team Rapid and Blitz, with each point counting towards the overall team score.
Tournament Overview
- WHERE: Music Room, Hart House, University of Toronto.
- WHEN: March 29th – March 30th
- SCHEDULE: 6 Double-Round Blitz Round-Robin tournament, split in 3 sections. Followed by a 6 Single-Round Rapid Tournament.
- TIME CONTROL: Blitz: 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment from move 1. Rapid: 15 minutes + 10 seconds increment from move 1.
- RATING: All sections will be CFC Active Rated. Blitz will be FIDE Blitz Rated. Rapid will be FIDE Rapid Rated.
- DGT Boards: All games will be broadcast live on DGT boards. Game delay of 60 seconds for blitz, 3 minutes for rapid.
- Organizers: Victor Zheng (Toronto), Josh Zabor – (Waterloo)
- Arbiters: Victor Zheng, Tanner McNamara, Michael Corrie
- Media: Stella Ting, Derek Ma
Blitz Tournament
Team tournament of 6 double rounds starting at 12 noon, Saturday March 29th
- Time Control: 3 minutes plus 2 seconds increment
- Round Times: Round 1 at 12 noon, subsequent rounds every 15 minutes with event ending around 3 pm.
- Sections: Each school will have a Team A, Team B, and Team C each with 6 players.
- Team A will play all players of Team A in blitz.
Rapid Tournament
Team tournament of 6 rounds starting at 4 pm, Saturday March 30th
- Time Control: 15 minutes plus 10 seconds increment
- Round Times: Saturday 4 pm and 5 pm. Sunday 10 am, 11 am, 1 pm, 2 pm.
- Sections: Each school will have a Team A, Team B, and Team C each with 6 players.
- Team A will play all players of Team A in rapid.
- Pizza will be provided on Sunday afternoon after Round 2.
Tournament System:
Scheveningen System – Pairings will be announced by noon March 28th.
Prizes:
- Team Plaque for overall team winner. A Rapid win counts as 2 points and a Blitz win as 1 point. If team are tied in points after the Rapid, a single-game tiebreaker blitz will be played from a player nominated from each school, until a decisive result is achieved.
- Individual Prizes: $100 + Plaque for 1st for the top-player in each section for each tournament.
Live Broadcast
The top-12 games will be broadcast live on DGT boards available for blitz and rapid.
PAIRINGS
Pairings and team standings for the tournament are available here. Drawing of lots were held alongside team representatives on March 26th to determine pairings and starting rank orders. Results, pairings, and crosstables are available on chess-results.
Players
University of Toronto
| Name | CFC ID | CFC Rating | CFC Membership | FIDE ID | Team | Starting Position (by drawing of lots) |
| Max England | 155135 | 2422 | Valid | 2622602 | A | 5 |
| Nicholas Vettese | 154199 | 2361 | Valid | 2620090 | A | 1 |
| Fengxi Mao | 166033 | 2340 | Valid | 2632586 | A | 3 |
| Samuel Zhang | 171147 | 2333 | Valid | 30942993 | A | 4 |
| Henry Zhang | 153836 | 2158 | Valid | 2620162 | A | 6 |
| Cindy Qiao | 155864 | 2122 | Valid | 2620243 | A | 2 |
| Jack Klein | 192526 | 2065 | Valid | 30978467 | B | 3 |
| Bingfei Wang | 172444 | 2043 | Valid | 8618585 | B | 4 |
| Christopher Yu | 167321 | 1884 | Expired | 329105180 | B | 2 |
| Peter Yong Qiu | 162493 | 1800 | Valid | 2637316 | B | 5 |
| Yukuan Zou | 178153 | 1786 | Valid | 2658615 | B | 6 |
| Jinglai He | 166992 | 1757 | Valid | 2637286 | B | 1 |
| Manuel Drehwald | 193444 | 1730 | Valid | 12934330 | C | 3 |
| Joshua Bakradze | 177444 | 1698 | Valid | 2648415 | C | 6 |
| Sharif Hafez | 190315 | 1464 | Valid | 2670143 | C | 4 |
| Eric Lam | 154275 | 1383 | Valid | 0 | C | 5 |
| Samuel Zheng | 169160 | 1034 | Valid | 0 | C | 1 |
| Mark Li | 191589 | 0 | Valid | 0 | C | 2 |
University of Waterloo
| Name | CFC ID | CFC Rating | CFC Membership | FIDE ID | Team | Starting Position (by drawing of lots) |
| Olivier Lalonde | 175462 | 2266 | Expired | 0 | A | 1 |
| Momin Fayzan | 186418 | 2168 | Expired | 0 | A | 3 |
| Brendan Tan | 157922 | 2150 | Expired | 2650401 | A | 6 |
| Dorian Kang | 155339 | 2101 | Expired | 2619156 | A | 4 |
| Sanjay Ramesh | 162979 | 2045 | Expired | 2631270 | A | 5 |
| Savio Joseph Benher | 161296 | 2032 | Valid | 2629453 | A | 2 |
| (Tom) Minh Thong Nguyen | 169333 | 1949 | Valid | 12405124 | B | 5 |
| Sriram Kumar | 172280 | 1948 | Expired | 30904730 | B | 4 |
| William Ratelband | 158224 | 1908 | Valid | 2630729 | B | 3 |
| Malhar Singh | 158060 | 1899 | Valid | 2628686 | B | 1 |
| Nicholas Lyn | 177402 | 1740 | Expired | 0 | B | 6 |
| Christopher Xiang | 160540 | 1697 | Valid | 2629534 | B | 2 |
| Matthew Sekirin | 175166 | 1818 | Expired | 2647273 | C | 5 |
| Lily Zhou | 151749 | 1688 | Expired | 2616343 | C | 3 |
| Omkar Baraskar | 184408 | 1682 | Expired | 33446660 | C | 4 |
| Rachel Spanglet | 175008 | 1678 | Valid | 0 | C | 6 |
| Ziqi Zhou | 175042 | 1656 | Valid | 2660768 | C | 1 |
| Cody Ruan | 157560 | 1478 | Expired | 0 | C | 2 |
Contact: hhchess@studentorg.utoronto.ca
Find the 2024 event report here.
Hart House Chess Club 