Five members of Stanford’s chess team dueled kings at the Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Championship over winter break, taking 11th place in a field of more than 30 teams.

Although the 11th place finish does not qualify for a cash prize under the Championship’s rules, Stanford team members said they were happy to have fared better than many of their peers at the Miami Dade College tournament.

“It’s great to be in the top third,” Stanford Chess Club President Chris Seck said in an email to The Daily, highlighting the super-competitive nature of intercollegiate chess events.

According to Seck, the team was competitive with the University of Texas at Dallas, which sent two teams of five, including several international masters and grandmasters.

But the Stanford chess club is not only for those ready to go head-to-head with masters and grandmasters. Meetings are open to local enthusiasts as well as Stanford students.

According to Seck, Stanford has something up its sleeve to counter even the wiliest of Texas’s grandmasters: an experienced Romanian coach who gives free lessons to the club.

Chess club enthusiasts gather outside Jamba Juice in Tresidder Union for several hours on Sunday afternoons to practice checkmating each other.