Baltimore - The UMBC Chess Club will host ChessFest 98 in the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery on Saturday, October 10, from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Activities include free chess instruction for beginners and intermediate players ages 7 - 12 (10 -11 a.m.) , informal open play (11 a.m. - 4 p.m.), and the UMBC vs. Stanford six-board match at noon, with move-by-move analysis by Life Master, Tom Brownscombe.

Alan Sherman, UMBC's faculty advisor to the chess club and an associate professor of computer science, has built a powerhouse team in the last few years by recruiting outstanding players from all around the world. The team has outperformed some of the strongest in the country, and captured the 1996 Pan Am championship by beating MIT, Harvard and Penn.

UMBC players challenging Stanford include:

Tal Shaked, International Grandmaster and World Junior Champion from Tucson, AZ. This UMBC freshman on a chess scholarship at UMBC is the recipient of the prestigious Samford Chess Fellowship.

Eugene Perelshteyn, International Master and the highest ranking player in the U.S. under 18. Perelshteyn is a freshman computer science major on a chess scholarship at UMBC.

Oxana Tarassova, one of the top women chess players in the U.S. and a junior linguistics major on a chess scholarship at UMBC, from Kazan, Russia.

William "The Exterminator" Morrison, the 1995 Maryland Chess Champion and a graduate of UMBC's history department, who was the basis, in part, for the park chess player in the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher.

For more information about UMBC chess events, instruction scholarships and activities, check the Chess Club's homepage or call 410-455-2666.