Grandmaster 24, Sheridan chess club 0, but winners all around

FROM WYOFILE:

The Sheridan Chess Association brought in a Serbian chess protegee who took on the room, playing 24 games at once and winning all of them.

At age 21, Serbian chess player Luka Budisavljević is the youngest Grandmaster in his country’s history. A grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can achieve, besides world champion, and there are only around 1,850 of them in the world today.

In Sheridan last weekend for the Wyoming Community Foundation Open — a chess tournament with a $9,000 guaranteed purse — Budisavljević warmed up by playing 24 Sheridan players simultaneously. The Sheridan Chess Association, which hosts the tournament, put on the event to give local players a chance to compete against one of the sport’s elite.

Going from board to board and move to move in sweatpants and a track jacket from the University of Missouri, where he is a student and the reigning Pan-American Collegiate Chess Champion, Budisavljević won all 24 games.

Daniel Hoopes, a Sheridan High School student, held out the longest, lasting more than 30 moves against the Serbian protegee, according to Sheridan Chess Association president Brian Kuehl. “A bunch of people who played out of the 24 were young kids,” Kuehl said. “It’s an opportunity to bring chess into the community and for kids to get a chance to play against a grandmaster they’ll likely rarely, if ever, have that opportunity again.”

The real tournament began Friday and lasted until Sunday. The chess association has hosted the competition in Sheridan each of the last four years. The group’s principal goal remains getting Wyoming youth interested in chess, an activity Kuehl said imparts both critical thinking skills and focus to its young adherents.

Before his simultaneous dispatching of 24 local players, Budisavljević visited two Sheridan schools to talk about chess and play students blindfolded.

Budisavljević was one of three grandmasters in Sheridan for the weekend. The 79 contestants from eight different states also included state champions from Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. Players ranged in age from eight to late 80s, Kuehl wrote in a summary of the tournament.

Budisavljević ended up one of four people locked into a tie for first place in the tournament’s most elite division.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

This story was posted on May 9, 2025.