Grandmasters in Guayaberas

This is no surprise. At this level, there is rarely much drama in the opening game. Players are too smart to make fatal mistakes. During the opening game, they methodically angle for control and try to slice away their opponents' pieces.

In the fourth board match, which pits Charles against Katerina "The Kiev Killer" Rohonyan, not a single piece has been exchanged.

At 12:20, Curt and Chuck, who are patiently watching in the front row, head for the door. Chuck apparently has to go shopping. He can't wait another three hours. Curt, however, seems frustrated. A more advanced player than his dad, he's trying to learn from the masters, thinking it might improve his play. The games, though, are baffling to him. There is only one match he believes he can read. "I think that that guy," he says, pointing to Rodelay, "is looking good."

Very good, but I try to get a better update on the matches from Rene, who played chess avidly in high school and seems fluent in basic strategies such as the Sicilian defense.

"It's too early," he says.

Then UMBC's coach, Igor Epshteyn, leaves the room. He's a former Soviet master and a former coach of the Belarus junior national team; he's also from Minsk, the hometown of Veresov. He surely knows what is going on. "I cannot discuss," he says, frowning at the mere question. Then he admonishes me. "You should not be talking about game during game. Should you? It's not right."

But the other Eastern European coach, UTD's Rade Milovanovic, a champion player from Serbia, is more approachable. "Blehm," he says, referring to The Polish Magician, "has sacrificed a pawn with no known return. Perhaps he is seeking position." He raises his eyebrows at this mystery. "It's not clear."

12:30 p.m.

More than two hours into the match, just as it begins to appear that nothing discernible will ever happen — that another reporter will fall to Mr. Sandman — there is action on the first table in the Duke vs. UTD match.

Within a roughly 30-minute period, each of the pairs stands, signs a form that lists all of their moves, and, without any clear visible facial expression — no smiles, frowns, sighs — hands it to Guadelupe, the tournament director. It looks like a bank transaction.

Not a single cry of "checkmate," nary a puffed chest or high-five.

The Dukies, it's revealed, lost all four matches. Several players retire to an adjacent conference room bearing a sign that says "skittles" — that's chess parlance for a free-for-all room — where they'll discuss moves, sometimes for hours.

The resolution of the Duke/UTD match does not, however, affect the other match.

2:10 p.m.

Regulation time is expiring. Players had been given two hours apiece to make 40 moves. Once the two hours are up — assuming they have met a quota for moves — they get another hour. Guadelupe begins to reset the clocks.

2:30 p.m.

Roughly twenty minutes into the overtime period, Alberto rubs his bald head and slowly stands up. Sweat rings have formed under his arms. Finally there's some emotion — a head shake, a small frown. The Veresov opening did not confound The Frenchman.

3:30 p.m.

Three Miami Dade matches have lasted five-and-a-half hours; we're now deep into overtime. "This is good," says Rene, nodding excitedly about the delayed outcome. "We're making them work. Who knows what could happen now."

But there's bad news on the first board. Though Renier did not squander his early pawn advantage over Grandmaster Blehm, and has maintained an advantage, he has not managed his clock efficiently. Without enough time to effectively consider his moves, he is forced to accept defeat.

It's left to Rodelay and Charles to salvage a draw.

Charles, playing fourth board, is perhaps the first round's biggest surprise. The chubby-face twenty-year-old, in his first Final Four, has controlled his match against the stone-face Rohonyan for nearly five hours. But in the overtime period, The Kiev Killer gains position and at 3:40 finally prevails.

The only bright spot: Rodelay. He endures a barrage of checks in the waning moments — it's a situation the Cuban players call "a catcher" ("We use the English word," he explains) — and is able to save a draw. In fact, if it weren't for a stupid infraction by his opponent — Bhatia neglected to turn off his cell phone and was thus penalized ten minutes of time — the MDCers might have been swept.

Round One is over. The MDC Sharks, it seems, are in trouble.

They walk out slowly, fretting rapidly in Spanish about missed opportunities. Now they face a must-win situation against the home team in a match that is to begin in less than 50 minutes.

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Few sports require less movement than chess. The game's requirement: moving roughly one-ounce pieces two to five inches while sitting. With such limited demands, the game often attracts the diminutive, the grossly obese, even the disabled (Stephen Hawking was a chess master).