Teaneck Scholastic Chess Camp Week #5: 
The word of the day is “Sangry!”

…Which means to be “Sad and Angry” at the same time. Armaan Ivaturi, one of our new arrivals straight from Fort Lee school #2 won the contest of coming up with a new word not so much for the simple combination of letters and syllables but more so on the strength of his example sentence which claimed “Slava was Sangry because he couldn’t make a kid cry all week.”  If we can forget the power of the comedic effect of this for one second the real nail on target was the fact that this was 100% true.

In typical camp week news Andrew Volynsky clinched first place in the classic tournament competition after coming back from a lost position against Phillip Tsigankov in the fourth and final round.  Joshua Khodosh(ua) finished second after defeating his best frienemy Daniel Paley in the same final round.  Ben Porat Yosef’s own Daniel Brauner in his first week at the camp was the winner of section two, while Benjamin Franklin’s middle schooler Nanaama Bonsu won first place in section three.  Emery Brower, despite losing his last game to Annabelle Volynsky was the winner in section four.

In the best student competition Daniel Brauner also proved to be Ivette’s best student, while in Slava’s group a tight battle was finally won by Moshe Trapedo during the final two positions of the week.  Five out of the six students in Slava’s group memorized the assigned game, and going into the final two positions Andrew Volynsky, Phillip Tsigankov, and Moshe Trapedo were all tied with 37 points with Moshe edging his two challengers with correct answers in both positions. Ari Pahmer continued his older brother Kovi’s legacy of best student awards by winning best student honors in Orren’s group, while Emery Brower took the prize in Won’s group.

The problem solving winner was the other Pahmer of the week in Hudi Pahmer who did the most positions out of anyone.  Moshe Trapedo won the simul event on the strength of a drawn game against coach Orren early in the week. Low on time Orren settled for a perpetual check in a winning position due to the clock clicking its heels at his hurried thoughts. Phillip Tsigankov was best in notation more so because he didn’t make errors in recording the assigned memorized game as opposed being neater than other people.

The Friday blitz bughouse winners were the “Grandmasters” who were captained by Andrew Volynsky, and were comprised of Hudi Pahmer, Jonah Kermaier, and Annabelle Volynsky.  Andrew took his coaching duties very seriously, but not as seriously as his duties of being an older brother something that helped Annabelle really contribute to the team’s point total thanks to his sibling mentoring (great job Andrew and Annabelle!).

The Volynsky family also dominated the sports groups winning every single group where a member of the family was participating. Anabelle won the youngest group, Moshe Trapedo won the second group, and brothers Jacob, and Andrew Volynsky won the remaining two groups.

Joshua Khodosh held on to his dodgeball lead going into Friday’s decisive games (the dodgeball special was “Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give you up… But I’m going to get you out!!”) and while Moshe Trapedo came on late with his “skillz that killz” dance moves, Joshua sealed the victory by knocking down the last cone of the last game to win the dodgeball prize (which was of course a soccer ball).

Joshua also contributed to the victory of his relay race winning team the legacy known as the “Hog Riders” who were captained by Moshe this time but were comprised of Joshua, Daniel Brauner, Simon Ginzburg, and Jacob Pollard.

Anahit Melkumov was the winner in the art contest, while Jesse Perchuk took Mike’s prize for music.

We also awarded a new prize to the best singer during Friday’s award ceremony and the winner of that was Phillip Tsigankov for his passionate hand gestures which accompanied his energetic vocals.