There are also a number of US Chess masters such as: Stanley Yang, Dion Su, Mihail Bantic, Austen Green, Jimmy Heiserman, Adarsh Jayakumar, Nelson Lopez, Jarod Pamatmat, and Abhishek Mallela.
Historically, the club's most famous member was Ken Smith for whom the Smith-Morra Gambit is co-named, and the DCC hosts an annual tournament in his honor.
[3] This sentiment is echoed in one unaffiliated chess blog which in 2008 declared the DCC to be "one of the most active clubs in the nation with over 2000 events hosted since 1991".
[4] Part of the reason for this success has been the chess program at the nearby University of Texas at Dallas, which is helmed by Director James Stallings, team coach IM Rade Milovanovic (who tied for first in the 2008 US Open in Dallas), assistant director Luis Salinas of the DCC, and senior lecturer Alexey Root (a former US women's national champion).
DCC hosted Robert Smeltzer (1930–2010), who set the world record in 1995 for playing the most rated chess games in a single year, for a total of 2266.