It’s a bit of a holiday for us at ICA. Our spring summer has ended, and we’re prepping for a summer of chess camp and online lessons. And in keeping with tradition, it’s time for the Dr. David Ostfeld Memorial ICA Championship event which we held on Sunday at the Bergen County Academies in Hackensack. It’s our first tournament there since the pandemic, and it was glorious to celebrate the event with so many familiar faces and many new ones.
The Dr. David Ostfeld Memorial / ICA Championships is actually a combination of seven sections, each of which operates as its own independent tournament.
(You can learn more about Dr. Ostfeld here.)
These are the youngest kids and they are an absolute joy to work with. They’re highly enthusiastic, but haven’t always gotten the hang of how the game works. Unusual moments are quite common. On one occasion I noticed a game was missing its king. When I asked where it was, one of the players informed me their opponent captured their king earlier in the game. Another time two players played about ten moves each completely oblivious that one of the players had mate-in-one. And on multiple occasions I had to remind kids they weren’t allowed to give advice to other players. Young kids love to be helpful, and they don’t always recognize when it’s best to restrain that impulse.
It was glorious pandemonium filled with joy, enthusiasm, and on rare occasion tears. Being asked at the awards ceremony if the trophies are made with real gold made me wish I was young again.
I met so many terrific kids there that I can’t even begin to give them all shout-outs for being so much fun, so I’ll settle for just one - Dexter Hong, whose smile was as big as his “Mohawk”-style haircut. Whether winning or losing he was having a grand old time. His gregarious nature spread to the kids around him and made my job that much easier.
There were 29 kids in this section, of which eight went home with trophies. Those players were…
1st - Samuel Golgorsky (4.0 points)
2nd - Nikolas Serenkov (4.0)
3rd - Dylan Tsui (3.0)
4th - Benjamin Law (3.0)
5th - Kevin Yao (3.0)
6th - Milena Hartyunyan (3.0)
7th - William Kandelman (3.0)
8th - Dexter Hong (3.0)
These kids were typically a bit older and/or more experienced at chess. The increase in maturity was immediately noticeable. They were able to sit quietly for longer, to concentrate better on their game, and had a better grasp of the game’s rules. The average skill level in chess of this group was definitely improved from section 1.
That said, this group has its moments as well. The players have a better grasp of the rules, but sometimes get confused how best to apply them. For example, two players had a disagreement on whether accidentally knocking over a piece constituted touching it for purposes of touch move.
My shout-out in this section goes to Jingyi Claire Li. I’ve met Claire at several events. She’s always friendly and curious, but quiet and serious as well. Her family would know better than me, but I’ve never noticed her emotions rise or fall regardless of the outcome of her games. She’s one of those names I like seeing on a player list as I know she’s a terrific addition to any tournament I direct.
A smaller shout-out to several of the other friends I made in this section: Oleksandr, Hank, Shaan, Lorenzo, and others. I’ll be working at the Teaneck Summer Camp this year, and hope I run into a few of you there.
The eight trophies for this section went to…
1st - Oleksandr Vasylenko (4.0 points)
2nd - Liam Kelly (3.0)
3rd - Jake Schaadt (3.0)
4th - Hank Tarantino (3.0)
5th - Brian Fuhrman (2.0)
6th - Jinyi Claire Li (2.0)
7th - David Nurgaleev (1.0)
8th - Shaan Jain (1.0)
There’s a significant jump in the average ages between sections 2 and 3, and everything about this section reflects it. Their games take significantly longer to play as they now often have the patience to sit and study the board for a while, instead of jumping at whatever move pops out at them first.
They also need far less assistance than the younger kids. They can work out minor disagreements on their own, and make far fewer procedural errors. They do tend to be on the noisy side, as they feel less of a need to run back to their parents’ after each game, much preferring to talk to their friends. So the bulk of my work here was often shooing players done with their games back out into the waiting area.
If I had to describe these players in a word, it would be “growing”. They’ve completed a lot of growth both as chess players and as human beings, but still have more work ahead of them. All in all, I like working for them.
My shout-out goes to the Zarineh twins, Kian and Rayan. One played in section 3, the other in section 4. The two are so full of life and energy that I’m pretty sure they’re half of a set of identical quadruplets. Two kids can’t possibly contain as much vigor as they have. At one point one of the boys raced past me in the hall. “Don’t run in the---” is as far as I got before he was gone. I haven’t yet figured out how to tell the two apart, something I’m really hoping they don’t ever use to their advantage. (I asked one how he knew who was who when he looked at a photo of the two of them. His reply: “I dunno, I just do.”)
The top eight trophy winners were…
1st - Andres Maldonado (4.0 points)
2nd - Adrian Noh (4.0)
3rd - Bo-Yuan Nathan Wang (3.5)
4th - Ruthvik Veerapeneni (3.5)
5th - Maxim Swinton (3.0)
6th - Anna Juliet Tkach (3.0)
7th - Aayush Washimkar (3.0)
8th - Vihaan Vaidya (3.0)
This section represents another jump. Not necessarily in skill, but in self-confidence and a willingness to take risks. There are players in their 700s here that could have easily walked away with a trophy in the Under 800 section, but don’t need that kind of reward to maintain their self-esteem. They’d rather risk a poor win:loss ratio in exchange for the opportunity to play more difficult opponents.
At this point the players rarely have disputes at their tables. They’ve long ago gotten over petty bickering of touch-move issues that plague younger players. They work out or ignore most issues on their own, although occasionally they regret that later as they sometimes don’t want to “rock the boat” by summoning a tournament director to adjudicate an issue that should be addressed.
Still, the habit of “doing their own thing” makes them easy to work for. They’re quiet (usually), they’re attentive, and they’re respectful of their opponents.
I really don’t know who to applaud in this section, since they managed themselves so well and I interacted with so few of them. So I’ll call out Guy Naveh whom I chatted with during the award ceremony. He’s a young and friendly guy playing in a tough section where most of the kids are beyond his age. I admired his confidence, and the fact that he walked home with a trophy suggests he chose his section well.
1st - Anderson Schafer (4.0 points)
2nd - Kian Zarineh (3.0)
3rd - Daniel Chapnik (3.0)
4th - Siddhanth Murugabiran (3.0)
5th - Gideon Richard (3.0)
6th - Justin Galitskiy (3.0)
7th - Gillian Gao (3.0)
8th - Guy Naveh (3.0)
This was the smallest of our sections at the event -- only 7 people. This bode well for award winners since trophies were guaranteed to the top 5 finishers.
I can say little about this group. They were quiet, parked near the edge of the room, and to my knowledge never once needed tournament director assistance except to start each round. All seven were serious players who played to the absolute best of their ability.
So my shoutout goes out to all seven players: Aiden, Sean, John, Eva, Zhao, Vivaan, and Matthew. Well done to all of you. If the tournament had been filled by people like you, I’d have been (happily) bored behind the tournament director's desk twiddling my thumbs waiting for something to happen.
Trophies went to the top 5 winners. They were…
1st - Matthew Li (3.5 points)
2nd - Eva Nikokur (3.5)
3rd - Kevin Andrew John Francis Kennedy (2.5)
4th - Zhao Yang (2.5)
5th - Vivaan Kohli (1.5)
The skill level continues to go up. These are a mixture of adults and young adults, all of which have a gift for chess. There’s definitely laughter and a great respect for one’s opponents, but no tears. The maturity level has passed far beyond what it was in the younger groups.
The players have disputes, but they’re often subtle. At one point I noticed someone using a cell phone to recreate a game. When approached, he was looking for evidence that a player had cheated.in a game against a friend of his. “His opponent played too well,” he explained. I pressed him for evidence the player had been cheating. He had none. Not even any idea of how he might have cheated. I pointed out that playing well wasn’t against the rules, and it was highly unlikely he was using an electronic device at the table as it would have been highly obvious. Satisfied, he put the phone away.
I really enjoy working with this level of player. It’s a little boring as a tournament director -- they solve so many of their issues there isn’t a lot for me to do. But that’s actually a good thing: a tournament director should be a little bored. That means everything is running smoothly and everyone is focused on their games.
At the halfway point of the tournament, it was clear from the volume of upsets in the previous two rounds that it will be an underdog rather than a favorite that will win the tournament. The two favorites, Arnav Adepu and David Milstein, were on 0 and 1 points respectively. Only four players had two out of two points: Alan Salnikov, Matthew Greenhall, Thomas Holder, and Ido Alkin. As a result, the third round was like a semifinal and the fourth was like a final. In the third round, Matthew played Alan and Thomas played Ido.
It was expected that the semifinal matches would be thrilling, nail-biting contests and that the top two boards would be the last to leave. Unfortunately, this was far from the case.
After being publicly open about his fatigue from the previous two matches, it was clear that Alan (black) would struggle to play another two hour game. As a result, he tried to catch his opponent out by exposing his king in exchange for center control in the Old Benoni Defence. He then thought he saw an opportunity to put pressure on the white knight on c3 which was guarding the bishop on b5. Only problem: his king was more wide open than Liverpool’s defense this season! As a result, not only did 10. Qh5+ win a bishop, but it very quickly led to checkmate!
The other game between Thomas and Ido took much longer, but it was Ido who got the win in the end. This meant it would be Ido against Matthew in a winner-takes-all matchup in the final round. Again, this game was one of the first to finish; only this time, Matthew would be on the losing end, meaning Ido won the section with a perfect record. In addition to the $200 cash prize, Ido is only a few rating points away from gaining entry to our Open events!
Section 6 had cash awards instead of trophies. These awards went to…
1st place - $200
Ido Akin
2nd - 7th place (tie) + Top under 1400 - $50 each
Choco Chen
Artem Valyaev-Kunisky
Matthew Greenhall
Thomas Holder
Aaron Golgorsky
Ari Lukatsky
Top under 1200 (tie) - $25 each
Jacob Aaron Pollard
Peter Khain
Section 1. Unrated games, grades K-2
Section 2. Unrated games, grades K-4
Section 3. Under 800 rating, grades K-12
Section 4. Under 1200 rating, grades K-12
Section 5. Under 1400 rating, all ages
Section 6. Under 1600 rating, all ages
