Who’s the best chess player? Time to find out.

8 Terps set to compete in blitz tournament

Blitzing has a new meaning for several members of the Maryland football team.

Eight Terps players, including starting safety Dante Trader Jr. and presumptive starting quarterback Billy Edwards Jr., will trade their helmets and pads for boards and clocks as they compete in an intra-team blitz chess tournament Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

And make no mistake: the participants aren’t pulling any punches in their quest for a win.

“I don’t like to lose,” said Trader, a McDonogh graduate and junior. “I really care about this a lot.”

Said Edwards, a redshirt sophomore: “I’m already planning my post-championship victory in the throne room. They need to make sure they keep that seat warm for me.”

One observer who plans to attend is Maryland coach Mike Locksley, who said he has dabbled in chess.

“It will be interesting for me to see how it plays out,” he said. “When you’ve got guys like Dante Trader and Billy Edwards in it, I would think guys like them are veteran players andveteranguys.I’dbetonthemjust knowing their backgrounds.”

The matchups — called BlitzChamps and hosted by Chess.com on the company’s website and its YouTube and Twitch channels — were established last week. Trader will face freshman defensive lineman Dillan Fontus; Edwards will take on redshirt freshman defensive lineman Daniel Owens (Calvert Hall); freshman offensive lineman Deandre Duffus will clash with sophomore linebacker Caleb Wheatland; and redshirt sophomore defensive back Chantz Harley will tangle with freshman defensive back Tayvon Nelson.

In blitz chess, each player will have five minutes to make a move. Each matchup will entail four games, and the tournament is a single-elimination format until a champion is

crowned.

The Terps are the fourth college football team to play in BlitzChamps, which visited Michigan in June, Stanford in July and Texas in October. The tournament also crowned Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Chidobe Awuzie (now with the Tennessee Titans) in a six-player competition in July 2022 and Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Drue Tranquill in an eight-player tournament in June.

Locksley, who acknowledged that he might have done a double take at the idea of playing chess when he was a safety at Towson from 1988 to 1991, said football and chess share some similarities.

“I would’ve been like, ‘Hey, man, what’s going on? What happened to the beer pong?’ ” he joked. “But having played the game and learned the game, everybody knows that it’s a thinking man’s game, and I know from quarterback training, [you need to have] an anticipation of moves and seeing the big picture of things. I think there are a lot of things that can be taken. Chess is a game of positioning and taking over territories, and football is the same thing.”

Harley compared chess pieces with each member on defense.

“There are more powerful pieces [in chess], but no piece is more important than others, and that’s kind of like how football goes,” he said. “If one person blows an assignment, then that could lead to a touchdown. So it’s like a pawn. Even though they have quote-unquote less power, they can be utilized in the right way to win a game.”

Football players using their brains instead of their muscles might seem a contradiction, Trader acknowledged.

“Us playing chess isn’t going to kill that stereotype, but it’s a good step in the right direction,” he said. “If [critics] have that notion, come play us in chess because we’ll beat you in that and on the field, too.”

Chess became popular at Maryland when quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, offensive lineman Spencer Anderson and cornerback Glendon Miller joined the program and began playing. Players can be found huddling in the office of Charlie Harley, Chantz’s father and the team’s director of character and leadership development, who has a chess board there.

“It’s almost every day that you see a person in there playing a game,” said Chantz Harley, adding that Carson

Mitchell, an operations assistant for the team, is a top player.

There’s a vigorous debate over who is the most dangerous player. Trader said Fontus and Harley are “very good,” and Harley said sophomore linebacker David DeGuzman was specifically not invited to participate in the tournament because of his prowess at chess.

Edwards voted for Tagovailoa, who is busy preparing for the NFL draft.

“I’d get my butt whupped by Taulia, but every fifth or sixth game, I would beat him,” he said. “It was the talk of the quarterbacks room for weeks.”

Players are taking different approaches to Wednesday’s tournament. Harley said he has been consulting with a chess tutor, while Edwards said he has been playing five to 10 games per day. But Trader said he plays as many as 30 games per day during breaks and before sleep.

“I still watch a lot of YouTube videos because there are still a lot of things I don’t understand about chess,” he said. “I find myself studying those videos and then trying them out.”

When informed of Trader’s daily usage, Harley said, “If Dante’s playing 30, I guess I’ve got to start playing 31. I didn’t know that.”

Locksley said he is open to joining the Chess.com broadcast and providing some commentary during the proceedings.

“I’m trying to be the Black John Madden so that one day I can be on TV and get in on some of the action,” he quipped. “‘Look at Chantz Harley here. That was a terrible move. Rookie move by the rook.’ ”

So who has the edge Wednesday? Trader declined to offer “any bulletin-board material,” but described himself as the dark horse. Edwards scoffed at that characterization.

“He’s playing 30 games a day,” he said. “I’m cruising under the surface level. I’m going to need an hour of greatness this week, and I’ll be ready.”

Even though there is no monetary prize for the champion, that’s fine with the players because the bragging rights are just as worthy.

“The group chat is buzzing,” Edwards said. “People are already talking crap.”

Said Trader: “Nobody expects me to win. But I’m coming for them.”

If he wins, Harley vowed to avoid any rematches until training camp in August.

“I’m not playing them again until something worth my time comes,” he said. “When I win this, I’m going to talk that talk, for sure.”