Winter Chess Camp Report: A Queen Sacrifice On Christmas!

The week started off on Monday December 25^th with a highlight reel queen sacrifice by our French-German guest Victor Chen in his tournament game against Gary Leschinsky.  Victor whose position may have looked somewhat worse but about equal, took fool advantage after Gary defended the f7 pawn with Rf8 instead of Rc7 

to unload with the Qxf8! which led to either checkmate or as happened in the game a loss of a rook after six forcing moves.  Unquestionably this was the combination of the week for which Victor received a Dvoretsky book (“Recognizing Your opponents Resources”) which also recognized his winning of the “classical tournament” of which this particular game was a part (Victor drew for first with Jonathan Plavnik since their game ended in a tie in an exciting last second sacrifice by Victor to take Jonathan’s last pawn.  Jonathan also received a book prize for his effort).

Not to be outdone Gary Leschinsky went on to win the “opening theme” tournament on Thursday and Friday.  Each player picked an opening or variation with which to start each tournament game and play proceeded from there.  In round one Jonathan Plavnik who picked the Steinitz French lost to Gary, while Victor who picked the Ruy Lopez drew with Jonathan Zeng. In round two Gary who picked the famous Ng5, h6, Ne6 variation of the Karpov Caro Kann beat Victor while Jonathan and Jonathan drew their game.  In the last round Victor won by forfeit against Jonathan Plavnik (he had to go skiing in Vermont) while Gary and Jonathan Zeng opted to let Slava select a double kings pawn game for both. Jonathan who knows more about the Scotch game wasn’t allowed to play it as Gary opted for the Petroff, so not to be outdone Jonathan (who got a prize for his transposition) picked to play a three knights game which Gary aptly turned into a four knights.  Jonathan chose the Ruy Lopez four knights instead of the Scotch four and after Gary played Bc5 Jonathan went for the fork trick to which Gary replied with Bxf2+ going on to win an exciting game.

The grand Prix winners were Avital Nozic and Alex Vern who won an equal number of games this week. The French defense dominated the tournament game proceedings and black won every single time (all games were advance French variations) save for once.  Samuel Obadiah, who later said to Slava “I remember you said Nc3 is the main line move so why does everybody go for the advance” won by playing the main line (which turned into a Steinitz where Sammy didn’t play f4) and later mating his opponent Victor’s brother Adrien on g7.

Outside Alex Vern ruled the Soccer field, while Gregory Gentile busied himself by building a fort of leaves in the middle of the dodgeball field (in order to hide behind it from the other team).  Our friend Hayden Lee broke down the defenses on the last day by lobbing a ball that seemed like it wouldn’t make it over the top of Gregory’s fort but looks as it turns out are sometimes deceiving. The ball rolled up and over touching Gregory and scoring the last out of the week and the dodgeball prize for Hayden.

The winners of blitz bughouse on Friday were the “Improvisers” Avital Nozic, and Gregory Gentile who despite their success absolutely hate each other’s guts.