Computer engineering MSc student Bitan Banerjee has won the Alberta universitie4s chess championship.
(Edmonton) Bitan Banerjee, an Electrical and Computer Engineering master's student, is no pawn in the chess world: this year he won the Battle for Alberta annual chess championship by scoring seven wins in eight games.
A total of 26 players from the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and MacEwan University were fighting for the prize in a two-day chess battle taking Feb. 20-21.
The University of Alberta, this year's host, was named the Best University in the Battle for Alberta based on the score of the top four players.
What helped Banerjee 'checkmate' other players was cold logic, rational thinking, and mental and physical stamina. To stay on top of the game, Banerjee maintains databases of chess moves he might one day use in a chess battle.
"It's a war kind of thing. And for a war, you need to prepare a strategy beforehand," said Banerjee. "For the first four moves there are around 10 billion combinations."
To remain focused throughout a mentally intense game of chess-a single match can last six hours-Banerjee practices meditation.
He started playing chess at the age of six.
"My parents used to play chess as a hobby. As a kid I was enjoying the game and then I started playing some provincial tournaments back in India." Just like his childhood hero Garry Kasparov, Banerjee was inspired by the game at a very early age. Now Banerjee is Edmonton's fifth-best player according to the Chess Federation of Canada ranking.
For Banerjee, playing chess and conducting research are two interwoven activities that often feed off each other. His graduate study of wireless communication and networking echoes some of the underlying principles of the game.
"Chess, if you think of it from a programmer's point of view, has some search algorithms. Same with communication and networking," he said. "You need to consider multiple options and make an optimal decision. This can help solve optimization problems."
In the immediate future, Banerjee will be participating in the city-wide chess tournaments, Edmonton International Open.
"Sometimes it's a little bit hectic to do two or three things together, but if you love to do something, you can manage," he said.