ICA Scholastic Chess Camp Teaneck Week 10 Report!
Record 87 Campers Between Two Locations Brings Summer 2018 to a Close! Sign Up For Chess, Math, Robotics, & Our Tournaments This Fall!

After ten long weeks, we have finally come to the end of our summer camp. Our fully-booked camp required the classical tournament to have five sections this week. The highest section ended with three winners after Danny Paley got sick and didn’t attend two of the days of camp.  Moshe Trapedo, Kento Numakura, and Jacob Pollard all scored 2.5 out of 4 to tie for first.  In section two, Raymond Wang was the winner after some drama in his last round game.  Raymond blundered two pieces against Robert Choi (who was completely winning at that point) but, because Raymond didn’t resign, Robert got scared due to time trouble (he had four minutes left but not enough experience to make use of his material advantage) and forced a three-fold repetition that gave Raymond clear first in section two.  Dov Liben defeated his brother Lev in their last round game to claim first in section three, while the Messer siblings (Samuel and Lauren), both from Solomon Schecter Day School, won sections four and five, respectively.

The Best Students in each group were: Jacob Pollard in Gregory’s group, Raymond Wang in Ivette’s group, Levi Eliason in Alessandro’s group, Dov Liben in Chris’s group, Peter Park in Justin’s group, and “GM” Alec Gelfand in Hillel’s group.

Robert Choi was our best Problem Solver. In the Survival in a Simul event, Raymond Wang won the rated section, and Kento Giraldo won in the unrated group.  We had four people win for Notation as many of our youngsters really put an effort into neatly recording their games.  The winners were Netanya Agin, Spencer Chais, Christopher Jinn (he’s only 5!) and Haworth native Joanne Shen.

In Sports Groups, Lev Liben, Raymond Wang, Yeshaya Agin, Nathan Neufeld, Yakov Mankowitz, and Kento Numakura, listed youngest to oldest, won in their respective age categories.  Charles Jinn won for Dodgeball despite a last-minute surge by Nathan Neufeld that almost led to an upset against one of our strongest dodgeball players in recent history. Joseph Kouperschmidt was the best Soccer player.

Little five-year-old Ellie Park won for Art.

On Friday, our relay race event was won by Jonathan Perchuk’s “Spongetards,” which included Moshe, Danny Paley, Chris Lau, Raymond Wang, Peter Park, and Lev Liben.

The blitz/bughouse event was split into rated and unrated categories with Isak and Danny winning in the rated group and Lev, Lesley, and Alec winning in the unrated group.  Lev clinched first for his team while claiming vengeance for his defeat in the classical tournament by beating his older brother Dov in the last round.

Thanks to everyone for making this one of the most well-attended years of camp in the history of the chess academy.  We had 32 campers in Teaneck and 55 in Glen Rock in our final week!  Our best form of advertisement has always been word of mouth, and, thus, this year’s attendance is convincing evidence that our efforts are effective and appreciated as the word about our program has clearly spread.  Remember, if you want to build on what your children accomplished this summer, you should sign up for chess classes (either in Glen Rock or Teaneck), math (Zoya will teach in both locations but not all grades so check the schedule before you sign up), and our newest offering, robotics!