The tradition of university chess in Brno is closely linked to our faculty

The fourth Interfaculty Chess Tournament, which we can without exaggeration describe as the largest academic chess competition in the Czech Republic, took place at the end of March (March 24, 2026). This time, it was held at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at BUT—our faculty had hosted the previous tournament in the fall. In early spring, members of 20 teams gathered around the chessboards, and 90 players competed in at least one game. Among them was even the BUT Vice-Rector for Education and Quality, Assoc. Prof. Vítězslav Máša. Sixteen teams were student teams, one was composed of BUT alumni from across the faculties, and three were “staff” teams. The tournament had no clear favorite; the top-seeded team was the ESF MUNI selection—all of its players had a FIDE rating above 2000. Also in contention for the title were the defending champions from the Faculty of Information Technology and the traditionally strong Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

And the FIT students, who were tipped as the dark horses of the tournament, performed brilliantly. Our team managed to defend its title. This was their third victory out of four possible! Pro-AS VUT finished in second place with the same number of points, and the FSI VUT 1 team took third place.

Since April 2023, the inter-faculty tournaments have been organized by the Brno University Chess club, led by FIT VUT student Martin Benovič, together with Ondřej Havelka from FSI VUT. The association is, in Benovič’s words, “a group of six enthusiasts who strive to organize and promote chess events for university students.” The March Interfaculty Tournament was the last one led by Martin Benovič, a prominent figure in Brno university chess, in his role as the main organizer.

The driving force behind Brno’s tournaments

Benovič was introduced to the royal game by his father. He first tried it at the age of five. In his hometown of Strážnice, he began attending a chess club at the local Children’s and Youth Center, and after a few years, he took over the club as its leader and began organizing tournaments for its members. After graduating from the Industrial and Art School in Hodonín, he decided to pursue a career in IT. In the fall of 2019, he enrolled in our faculty. Martin’s enthusiasm for chess was impossible to overlook, especially in the student club U Kachničky. When the pandemic hit and games often moved online, Benovič received an invitation from Ondřej Kinšt (aka Toaster), the administrator of the faculty's Discord server and began creating online tournaments on the platform. These were occasionally attended by FIT VUT Vice Dean Bohuslav Křena, who has long supported the faculty’s chess players. “We even played an online match between FIT VUT and FIT ČVUT, which was streamed on Twitch,” recalls Benovič. The interest from both students and faculty motivated him to try organizing a major tournament. Benovič joined the FIT VUT Student Union and held his first tournament in the fall of 2021 for 32 participants. “Those early days were tough; for example, I had a hard time finding chessboards, even though the participants were on board. I wasn’t clear on everything an organizer needs to keep track of, what and when to communicate, and so on. Thanks to feedback from the players, I grew and improved the tournaments themselves,” Martin explains.

Inter-faculty tournaments are now considered one of the two highlights of his career as an organizer. The other is the Brno University Chess Championship, which took place at Mendel University in October 2023. He and his colleague Havelka would like to repeat this event this fall. “But when it comes to what I’m proud of and grateful for, I have to include the fact that we managed to put together a great team of organizers and enthusiasts. Part of that team is Ondřej Havelka, who has a large network of contacts and is great at promoting our tournaments. I also have to mention Martin Kuna from the Institute of Forensic Engineering, who has contacts in Slovakia. Thanks to him, I no longer have to worry about chessboards for the tournaments. And that’s a huge relief,” Benovič notes with a smile. Their team was joined by colleagues from MENDELU and MU. “There’s one more name that should be mentioned here—Marián Tarageľ, a student at FIT. He’s been a referee since the first tournament and helped me with the vast majority of tournaments on the refereeing side. Thanks to that, we were also able to have an online schedule of individual rounds on the Chess-results server, which sped up and simplified the process of taking our seats at the chessboards. Marián ensured the smooth running of the competitions,” concludes Benovič’s list of colleagues and acknowledgments.

Of course, one cannot help but ask why Martin is stepping down from his role as the main organizer of the Interfaculty Tournaments after all this time. “I figured that after five years, I’d had enough of the work; I was often the driving force behind the tournaments. Altogether, these were events for roughly a thousand people. I want to make room for others and enjoy the role of a referee myself. I simply want to enjoy the tournaments in a different role,” Benovič reveals his motivation, adding that he remains a member of Brno University Chess.

Chess is an all-encompassing hobby for Martin. “I like its diversity; you can engage with it as a coach, a player, and an organizer. I’m an enthusiastic athlete. I played tennis competitively for many years, and I play table tennis and billiards at a competitive level. And chess equips me for other sports with tactical thinking, patience, and self-control—after all, its games can last up to five hours,” he says, assessing the benefits of his favorite hobby. Martin is also a very successful player: He became the runner-up in the Czech Republic in rapid chess for the deaf. He long applied the perseverance he gained from the royal game as the main organizer of university tournaments in the South Moravian capital. We wish him continued joy in the game for years to come, and we thank him for giving Brno university chess its identity.