ICA Summer Camp 2010 Week 2 Report:
We are two weeks into our summer camp and things have not gotten boring in the slightest (we apologize for this). With six coaches, music, art, vegetables, and some of the hottest weather on record interspersed with unpredictable rain there was plenty going on in camp this last week.
Our official tournaments, ongoing all week every day after lunch, and giving the children a chance to showcase some of the things they learn each morning (and giving the coaches at least half an hour for peace and quiet while the kids play) were defined by a tie for first in every single section.
Our youngest, or section four, was won by a joint conglomerate of three people, as Douglas and Madeline Tsang, a sibling duo, tied for first along with Gabriella Clemente.
In section three, after five rounds of play, Anthony Clemente, Emre Alptuna, and Reid Slott were all tied with four out of five points each. With Reid winning against Anthony, Emre winning against Reid, and Anthony winning against Emre, there was need for a tie-break to determine the official winner. In a thrilling two day event that saw Emre and Reid draw in a position where both had winning chances, and Anthony beating Reid in the second of two tie-break matches, first place came down to the last tie-break match on the second day. With Emre playing white, and Anthony playing black, the winner would be crowned first in the section. After a tense Ruy-Lopez exchange variation, that saw quick trades of pieces leading into an endgame, Emre, in the face of a hanging rook, brilliantly pushed his h-pawn home with a two move combination that forced Anthony to sacrifice his own castle to prevent a promoted queen. A rook up Emre was headed to sure victory when he blundered the very same rook a few moves later, and though still holding the advantage of two passed pawns, exhaustingly agreed to a draw in an opposite colored bishop ending. Displaying tremendous character Anthony’ s draw meant he would win the tie-break, with Emre taking second place, and Reid rounding out the podium in third.
Section two, saw another last day tie-break, as Lev Krasnovsky, and Sid Wagh both scored four out of five points (Lev lost to Sid, while Sid drew two games) to tie for first. Forced to go to a one game tie-break playoff, the game ended as Sid, down to twenty-seven seconds on his clock, scored a clutch checkmate to secure victory in the section.
In Sergey’s camp, section one saw a weird come from behind win by David Rubenfeld, who rebounded from a first round loss to David Shekhtman to somehow win on tie-breaks. David S. who led most of the way slipped in the last round and lost to third placing Robert Elliot. With three-and-a-half points each, officially both David’s and Robert Elliot tied for first, with David R. on top, David S. second, and Robert Elliot third.
Aside from the chess, we also gave away tons of chess-related, sports-related, and miscellaneous prizes. Firstly, each coach picked the best student in each group, and those winners were: Elisheva in Kenny’s group, Dillon in Arjun’s group, Phillip in Danny’s group, Emre in Slava’s group, Madeline in Ben’s group, and Preston in Hana’s group. Each got a chess scorebook, or a chess book as a prize.
We also awarded a prize for the best chess notation, with the requirements being a game lasting more than twenty moves, that is written neatly, and has no mistakes. While in week one only a few games met the criteria, this week, with a decent amount of games, Lev Krasnovsky had the most games that fell into said category. Lev got a book by Lev Alburt as a reward. Coincidentally Lev was also the winner in the problem solving competition.
Daniel Khaitov won the inaugural, “survival in a simul” award, for lasting the most moves against a coach in a simultaneous exhibition, as he took Danny forty-five total before succumbing to checkmate. The whole point of this award is to reward children for not resigning, and fighting on even in the face of completely losing positions. Most coaches praised Daniel for his resilience in that sense.
We also held two individual blitz tournaments, for younger, and older players, with Madeline Tsang winning in the younger section, and Sid (after another playoff against Lev) winning in the older section.
In sports, because of weather, and coach complications (Hana wasn’t here the first day and this messed up the groups ) we only had one day of organized individual sports. Regardless, for that one day we did award prizes, and the winners were: Madeline Tsang in the oldest section (born in 98 or earlier), Anthony Clemente in the second section (b: 1999), Reid Slott in the third (b: 2000) section, Daniel Khaitov in the fourth (b:2001-2002) section, and Gabriella Clemente in the fifth (b: 2003) section.
Reid Slott won in dodge ball, while Kaylie Shelton was awarded the prize for best soccer player. Bertina Kudrin won the art prize for her wonderful “Gene the Crocodile/Krokodil Gena” piece, while Preston Wang got the prize for winning the trivia contest.
As per camp tradition, Friday was team, and relay race day, and in the sports event, Danny’s “Jumping Jack Flashes,” beat Hana’s “Flaming Stupidos” in a last event one man playoff, with Reid out-racing Madeline to win for his team. The team included Bertina Kudrin, Reid Slott, Phillip Blumin, and Jacob Tepler.
In chess, one of our newer events, the chess team competition, which splits the campers into teams of four and has them play two individual blitz games, as well as a bughouse game, was won by “Three knights and a Queen.” Two of the knights, Douglas Tsang, and Anthony Clemente, as well as the queen, Elisheva Drillich, were led to victory by the third knight, in Lev Krasnovsky, who also made sure his team beat the ringer team of the “Purple and Pink Horses” led by Kaylie Shelton, which included three coaches.
There was no Mr. Miyagi award for the killing of flies this week.
We thank everyone for coming, and hope to see you all during the coming weeks.
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