Checking on The Game

Fast paced action. Last minute win. Years of tradition. New Haven, Connecticut.

Is this the Harvard Yale Game Well, sort of.

Last Saturday three Harvard students, or "boards" as they are called in chess circles, managed to squeak by Yale at the annual Harvard-Yale chess tournament in the common room of Yale's Timothy Dwight College.

"The Game was last minute kind of like the match," said Jeremy L. Martin '96, a math concentrator "I was glad that Harvard was able to win them both this year."

Representing Harvard were Daniel J. Benjamin '99, Matthew W. Bengston '96 and Jeremy L. Martin 96, members of the Harvard Chess Club who are ranked in at least the top 6 to 7 percent of all chess players in the country, Martin said.

Each Harvard player played two games. The Harvard team walked away with four wins one draw and one loss.

"Because the [Undergraduate Council] bus was delayed our fourth board was not able to get there. Martin said.

Despite Harvard forfeiting two games because of the late bus, the Crimson contingent sent the Bulldogs away with their tail between their legs beating them games to 35.

Martin who learned the basics of chess at age five and won the State Chess Championship for southern California said he views chess as "a nice mix of an intellectual challenge and a sporting event.

"It's a very competitive battle of the minds," he said. "Occasionally, it borders on the physical."