2019 Summer Camp Week 9 Teaneck

You don’t need our master math teacher Mark to tell you that 10 minus nine equals one, and that is how many weeks of ICA chess camp are left. 30 students came to learn and have fun in our second to last week. As usual, we gave out numerous prizes to the winners in many categories of competition.

            First up are the Best Student awards. In Sean’s group, dodgeball dominator CHARLES JINN got serious about his chess this week and gave the best answers in his class. ELIOT NA emerged victorious from a tough field by just half a point in Ivette’s class. PEARL CHON won in Alessandro’s group by a landslide due to strong chess and great behavior. Eliot’s brother JUSTIN also worked very hard to win in Abe’s group, while CHRISTOPHER JINN was superior in Andrew and Zach’s group. Finally, GABRIELLE SHIELDS beat out her sister SARA in Daniel and Robert’s group.

            In our afternoon classical tournament, there were three rated sections and two unrated sections. LEON BERENFELD got the best of ISAK DUBROW in their tiebreaking game on Friday after both recorded three points out of four during the regular rounds. Similarly, ALEX XU needed a Friday morning game to take down THOMAS WEISCHEL for the section two title. In contrast, DOV LIBEN won section three very comfortably with 3.5 out of four while his closest competitor had only two points. PEARL was the best in section four (also with 3.5 our of four), while SARA was the only perfect winner of the week with the four out of four in section five.

            As usual, we also had several miscellaneous chess prizes to give out. To the surprise of no one, ELIOT was the Problem Solving winner for the second consecutive week. By the time Friday rolled around, Alessandro, who was responsible for giving out the problems, would see Eliot walking toward him, drop what he was doing, and walk toward the printer to give him yet another worksheet. Simul Survival was an interesting affair this week. Specifically, Thursday was not an easy day for simul-giver Alessandro, who played twelve boards at once! While his record was not very good (1 win, 9 losses, and two incomplete games due to students leaving before the end), it was certainly a good workout both mentally and physically, what with his literal running from board to board as time ticked down on each of his clocks. All the students and the other coaches were quite amused.  In any event, DAVIN SHIN and JAMES CHEN had nearly identical strong performances throughout the week to win in the higher section, while SAMMY BERENFELD gave the staunchest resistance in the lower section. In Friday’s Blitz-Bughouse Tournament, CHARLES and THOMAS took down the rated group, while LEO CHON and YESHAYA AGIN won a close unrated section with two other teams just half a point behind them.

            Venturing outside, we had six sports groups this week. The winners, from youngest to oldest, were: CHRISTOPHER, SAMMY, JUSTIN, CHARLES, ISAK, and WILLIAM PARK. CHARLES, propelled by a 22-point effort on Tuesday, took the dodgeball prize for approximately the millionth time. Meanwhile, in what is becoming a weekly tradition, the coaches, with the help of Isak and Charles, beat the other 25 kids in Friday dodgeball. The ending of the last game, which involved Isak and Charles decimating ten players after the coaches were all out, pretty much sums up the coaches’ collective dodgeball ability this week. THOMAS WEISCHEL, who managed to beat coach Sean in a shootout on Friday, easily won the soccer prize this week. In Relay Races, WILLIAM’S team of SARA, RAFFI WEISS, GABRIELLE, and SOPHIA PARK, which was called Ms. Grossman Can’t English, was victorious.

As usual, we had a few prizes that do not fit into any of these categories. The best artist this week was LEV LIBEN. The best musician was JAYDEN PARMAR. Finally, SAM PASSNER was the best mathematician from 2-3, and YESHAYA AGIN was the winner from 3-5.

There’s only one week left! As usual, the last week is already full in both locations as everyone tries to sneak in one more week of chess camp before the summer ends.