Artur Guia has practiced chess since childhood. At just 5 years old, he already knew the movements of each piece on the board. At 18, he had already participated in hundreds of competitions and is currently part of the Técnico team, winners of the latest National University Championship (CNU) in Rapid Team Chess – Mixed. In an interview with DEEC, the student shared part of his journey.

“My interest in chess started somewhat unexpectedly, because when I was little, my parents enrolled me in several extracurricular activities, and chess was just one of them,” he recalls. During primary school, he began competing, and it was during a tournament in Figueira da Foz, where he achieved 9th place nationally, that everything changed.

I consider that I started playing seriously, in competition, at 8 years old when I played my first national championship and won. That was when I decided that chess was more than a hobby—it was truly my passion.

Artur Guia, winner of the National University Championship (CNU) in Rapid Team Chess – Mixed

Currently, Artur Guia has more than 400 tournaments and over 2,300 games recorded with the International Chess Federation. He has been national champion in classical chess in the U8, U10, U12, U14, and U18 categories (where each player has 1 hour and 30 minutes per move with a 30-second increment) and national champion in rapid chess U16 (where each player has 10 minutes with a 5-second increment). In addition, he also competes in blitz chess, where each player has 3 minutes per move with a 2-second increment.

The student has also represented Portugal several times in international championships. In this regard, he highlights the importance of daily preparation, balancing training and rest. On the other hand, he emphasizes that these competitions also allow moments of social interaction and strategic discussion among players.

I represented the Portuguese national team on six occasions: I played in Greece, Romania, Latvia, Spain, and Albania, and I also participated once in the hybrid chess championships, during the pandemic, in the European hybrid event.

Artur Guia, winner of the National University Championship (CNU) in Rapid Team Chess – Mixed

He got to know the Técnico chess team through friends who practiced the sport and decided to join it as soon as he entered the school. He already knew several students and some professors, including Horácio Neto, a former DEEC lecturer and correspondence chess champion.

In addition to tournament visits, Artur Guia came to Técnico several times, participating in workshops, extracurricular activities, and Open Day events, where he deepened his knowledge of the Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (LEEC). Although he was already familiar with the field due to his father’s academic background, he decided to attend the course presentation session. He ended up enrolling in LEEC motivated by its broad scope, after a visit to Intele. “It is the course of the future,” he says, highlighting its impact across various sectors of society.

My purpose in life is to learn more, to understand how our world works—that’s what I enjoy, and electrical engineering explores how our technology works.

Artur Guia, winner of the National University Championship (CNU) in Rapid Team Chess – Mixed

Beyond the scientific areas of his course, Artur Guia is interested in languages, arts, and philosophy: “I have always liked all subjects. (…) In high school, I really enjoyed philosophy of science—Descartes’ theories, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper… because all of them contributed to how science is done, how we must think correctly so as not to make mistakes, to have clear thinking and progress more and more,” he highlights.

Artur Guia chose LEEC because it prioritizes understanding technical concepts about how the world works, particularly through its physical properties, but he hopes to later complement his knowledge with other fields, such as philosophy and physics.

For me, chess is a way of life; it is a philosophy because it teaches me how I should structure my thinking.

Artur Guia, winner of the National University Championship (CNU) in Rapid Team Chess – Mixed

For him, chess has many similarities with both philosophy and the scientific method itself: “The way science is done is by creating a problem, structuring a way to solve it, finding refutations and counterexamples that may challenge that theory, improving it, confirming it, and refining it over time until we reach the truth. Chess is somewhat like that,” he says.

In chess, players seek to reach the winning continuation, a challenge that has also been posed to different AI systems: “With the rise of artificial intelligence, chess has changed drastically, because new plans, new strategies, and new openings emerge that help us reach the winning continuation, but we never fully get there,” the student highlights. Although technological progress contributes to the development of “out-of-the-box” moves, which are sometimes not even explored by humans, Artur Guia emphasizes that finding the winning continuation is very unlikely due to the enormous number of possible moves.

He also emphasizes that the use of AI brings several benefits, such as suggesting ideas, but stresses that it is essential for users to have critical thinking: these tools should be used “more to confirm what we already think rather than to solve things.”

When asked about the future, Artur Guia says he hopes to continue learning about the world and to be able to balance competitive sport and academic life.

I hope I can balance my studies with chess, without giving up either, because I love both; they are my passions in life. I hope I can win more titles [representing Técnico].

Artur Guia, winner of the National University Championship (CNU) in Rapid Team Chess – Mixed

Photos: Artur da Guia