2020 Camp Week 2 Report
Another week of fun and learning has drawn to a close. Campers in the morning lessons upheld the high expectations set by the first week, continuing to work hard in morning group lessons. They solved puzzles to learn new tactical motifs and to reinforce familiar patterns while progressing through puzzles with added depth and new levels of difficulty. Grandmaster and camper games alike were analyzed carefully, allowing everyone to learn from the greats as well as learn from their own mistakes.
Awards Coaches’ Groups
Geoffrey continued his excellent performance from last week, and Valerie nearly clinched the prize for herself, but this time it was Kirill who ultimately claimed the best-in-group prize. Kirill’s speed and accuracy was particularly on point when it came to solving mating puzzles and in several memorable games he demonstrated great tactical intuition by grabbing and effectively wielding the initiative.
The winners for best-in-group were:
Danny's Group: Robert Choi
Sean's Group: Kirill Rustamov
Chris's Group: Anthony Ekelov
Nick's Group: Michael Lokhov
Slava's Group: Ankush Ambegaonkar
Ivette's Group: Ollie Gordon and Yanbo Pei
Philip's Group: Xavi Cox
Alex's Group: Sophie Chai
Tournaments
For the tournament we had four sections divided by level. The coaches were impressed by quite a few of these games, and of course the less accurate games were still useful tools for analysis with an eye toward improvement. The coaches would like to urge all returning campers to remember to TAKE THEIR TIME during the tournament games as many mistakes could have been avoided by more careful consideration and better time management.
The winners were:
Section 1: Ben Murkis
Sections 2: Black McCarthy
Section 3: Ethan Murkis & Drew Centeno
Section 4: Ankush Ambegaonkar
There were two sections for the Blitz tournament and
The winners were:
Section 1: Kirill Rustamov
Section 2: Anthony Ekelov
There were three sections for Problem Solving and the winners were:
Section 1: Robert Choi
Section 2: Anthony Ekelov
Section 3: Ankush Ambegaonkar
Daniel Chapnik won the Simul Survival Competition.
Anahit Melkumov won most improved player
Sean Vandalovsky won Best Effort
Non-Chess Activites
The non-chess activities continued to excite and inspire.
Campers in Mind Games impressed Roman with their own riddles, their ability to solve complicated puzzles, and their general warmth and enthusiasm. The winner for the Mind Games were Ari and Theo!
In Art Class, Erica described her students as passionate and a
pleasure to teach. The week was full of laughs, creativity and growth as they learned about and drew in the style of Pop Art, Pointillism, 2-Point Perspective, and other spontaneous prompts like drawing dream houses.The winner for the Art Prize was Blake!
In Theatre Class campers learned about improvisation and what makes for good scene work. Campers learned about character creation tools, incorporating verbs, objectives, emotional colors and even some Bartineuff fundamentals for movement to “color” character choices. Plot and scene structure were studied closely culminating in two very amusing original one-acts that included characters ranging from Percy Jackson to world chess champion Karpov’s baby. The winners for the Theater Prize were Graham and Mark!
In Math Class the winners Ankush, Daniel, Theo and Stefan!
With so many coaches commenting in different ways about the enthusiasm and kindness demonstrated by campers it is no wonder everyone is having so much fun. We are looking forward to more laughs and learning next week!
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