The University of Maryland, Baltimore County became national college chess champions Sunday after beating three teams in what is known as the Final Four of Chess.

Alan Sherman, director of the college's chess club and associate professor of computer science, said the final teams were some of the strongest UMBC has faced recently.

UMBC has won the tournament six of the past 10 years. The weekend-long tournament was held at the University of Texas at Brownsville and included that college as well as the University of Texas at Dallas, UMBC and Texas Tech University.

- Liz Bowie