Greg “Leg” Gabovich Shines At US Elementary Championships!

Greg “Leg” Gabovich shines at US Elementary championships! 
Statue to be erected in his honor at ICA Teaneck location!

Now that I have your attention, no there will be no statue of course, but Greg did play well and won, or drew, all his games this past weekend. Known as “The Leg” in chess camp lore (the nickname was Greg’s personal choice when I asked him to pick one for himself two years ago in summer camp), Gabovich dropped opponents left, and right, with both rook and knight, on his way to netting six out of a possible seven total points. When the smoke cleared Mr. Gabovich took 5^th, and not 3^rd  place, only because of those pesky Swiss style tie-breaks (i.e. if more than one player has the highest score the one with the hardest opponents gets first, the one with the second hardest gets second, and so on).

 

Greg’s result is an unprecedented one for the school, and even some of the ICA’s highest rated alumni, Daniel Rade, and Hana Itkis, never had such success at the Elementary championship level. Greg also had the lowest rating out of any player in the top 20 (his is 1388 while the next lowest was 1488), which is a good gauge of how tough the competition probably was on Sunday, or Saturday. However, after such a thoroughly dominant result I don’t think that will be the case any time soon. Greg’s rating went up by 150 rating points off of his few hours worth of effort at this tournament.

 

In his post-competition interview (he didn’t have one so I made this up), Gabovich claimed he had some rough moments but his ICA Jedi training was enough to defeat the evil powers of the dark side. Though he didn’t specify how many times he actually played as white he did share with us his preference for wearing his famous blue and orange shirt, which he pointed out brings him extra luck. 

 

He was none too happy about the use of “The Leg” moniker in the title of the article, but couldn’t dissuade me since he and I have an ongoing three-year feud.

 

 

Timothy Hoang, another member of the ICA roster, also had a measure of success in the weekend action by placing 25^th with a total of five out of a possible seven points. Hoang, who is very fond of wearing hats, was able to get by most of his competitors with the exception of the eventual 1^st place winner, and the above-mentioned Gabovich. 

 

When asked about his future plans in my made-up post-competition interview, Hoang said, he “will be back to defeat Gabovich,” as well as, “I love the International Chess Academy.” He than ran away to cheer on his little brother Ryan who was also competing that day in the K-1 section of the tournament.

 

There were 288 competitors in the K-5 section.

 

Ryan Hoang, otherwise known as the Toothless Terminator, plowed his way to five out of a possible seven points and a 47^th place finish in the K-1 section of the same tournament. Still working on developing a full set of permanent teeth (at least that was still so last summer) Ryan is the younger brother of the above-mentioned Timothy. 

 

Also on the ballot was Zachary Love, who earned four out of a possible seven and ended up 111^th from the top.

 

There were 247 competitors in the K-1 section.