HERNDON, Va. — If you ask the average sports fan about the Final Four that took place over the past few days, what you’re likely to get is a conversation about the annual springtime competition in which the outcome is determined by steals and slam dunks.
But in a small hotel conference room here over the weekend, a Final Four of a different sort hinged on sacrifices and stalemates.
Such is the Final Four of Chess, the pre-eminent collegiate chess tournament that annually draws American college chess teams to compete by moving a 16-piece miniature army on a small battlefield that is less than one thousandth the size of a basketball court.
However, in this year’s Final Four of Chess, the event’s corporate host and sponsor saw to it that participants would have opportunities to gain experience on a chessboard that is on a much grander in scale.
Specifically, the firm — government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, a technology and consulting giant based in Fairfax County — invited all of this year’s Final Four competitors to apply for internships at the company, including in its offices abroad.
That’s what Faik Aleskerov, 26, an MBA student at Texas Tech University, did last year after his team won the Final Four of Chess.
Aleskerov worked a Booz Allen Hamilton internship in Baku — the capital city of his native Azerbaijan — and has been invited to work another internship this year.
