Summer Camp 2017: Week 1 
Teaneck-Does “The Empire” Strike Back?

It was a fairly good week at Teaneck to start off the 2017 Summer camp season.  We had a lot of fun, especially in coming up with various nicknames for the various campers like William “The Conqueror” Park, or Charles “In Charge” Jinn, or Anton “Big Bad” Badushov. However, none of them could top Roman “The Empire (or as Roman said, “The Empire Strikes Back”)” Der Manuelian.

The tournament winners in each group were David Milstein in section one, who used both the Halloween gambit (for white and in one game incorrectly for black though it still worked), as well as the Mieses variation of the French defense as white, to beat out Isak Dubrow, Anton Badushov, Joshua Khodosh, and Aaron Shefter.  Charles Jinn in section two, and littlest of all Robert Choi in section three.

The best students in each group were David Milstein in Slava’s group, Roman Der Manuelian in Oren’s group, Hugh Kim in Richard’s group, and Soohan Cho in Won’s group.

Isiah Grant was credited with best notation, while Anton Badushov won the simul competition(on the strength of a touch move blunder by Won that gave Anton 100+ extra moves), and Hugh Kim was best for problem solving.

Outdoors the winners for the sports groups were Gabby Grant for the oldest group, Joshua Khodosh and Isak Dubrow for the middle group, and Christian Lavrinovich for the youngest group.

As it happened last year at this time (http://www.icachesscamp.com/play_chess_camps/1199/index.html ), Isak Dubrow once again won for dodgeball.)

Last year’s relay race winners were the “Hog Riders” (Josh Khodosh, Yaakov W, and Eric Meng) and this year, once again it was the “Hog Riders” who were once again led by Josh K (with Isak Dubrow, Charles Jinn, Soohan Cho, and Robert Yi).

The winners of the Friday blitz/bughouse event were the “Mexican Burritos” led by Aaron Shefter and with teammates Gabby Grant, Robert Yi, and Charles Jinn.

Finally, Anton “Big Bad” Badushov won the math prize.