ICA Summer Camp 2010 Day Camp Week 4
Dear mothers and fathers, do any of you know how one would go about beating their dad at chess if their dad was Garry Kasparov? (if you don’t know who Garry is SHAME ON YOU)
Now sure you could read Murray Chandler’s “How to beat your dad at chess!” and brush up on the final chapter where he mentions this topic, or you could, as Phillip Blumin says “read the same book with a pancake on your head,” but in reality the answer is way way simpler.
Yup, according to the winners of the inaugural ICA KVN Contest (i.e. The Club for the Happy and Creative), the Kama, Kama, Kama, Kama Kameleons, led by ICA coach Johnson Pau, the answer is
“!Call your mom!”
Though Johnson’s troup had some stiff competition from Solomon’s “Funny Potatoes Potatoes,” Genry’s “Fiber Ones,” and Danny’s second place finishing “The Electro Potato Headed Clowns” (Their mime rendition of a chess game was hilarious), in the end the above joke probably clinched the game for the Kamas.
The team was comprised of Andrew Volynsky, Josh Lerman, Connor Jordan, Christopher Elson, Sabrina Jeon, and David Zhu.
Oh, and we started this new tradition because the old one of Friday relay races was sidelined by yet another bout with bad weather and rain this week.
In other week four news, our regularly scheduled tournaments went off without a hitch and even went into some last day tie-break battles. However, in section six the tie-break was unnecessary as Sabrina Jeon won clear first with a perfect undefeated record. Sophie Rasol finished third, with Andrew Volynsky taking second in that section.
Section five came down to a last day playoff between Elisheva Drillich, and David Ionita, which was decided by a Tanya administered blitz game. David’s win knocked Elisheva down to second, giving Ionita the gold, Drillich the silver, and third placing Christopher Elson the bronze.
Section four ended early in the week as the two leaders, Victoria Gu, and David Zhu faced off on Tuesday, with the other David also coming out victorious. Victoria got second, and Zachary Mankowitz ended up in third.
For the second week in a row section three was dominated by Phillip Blumin, who only stumbled with a draw against Greg Volynsky and beat everybody else. Joshua Lerman, and Daniel Khaitov both tied for second and third with two points, but since Josh beat Daniel in their individual game (a close struggle with decisive blunders from both), he got second place.
Section two, came down to a three man last day play-off as tournament leader Zachary Love lost in the final round to Zachary Lyandres, and Michael Aksen who already lost to Zachary Love earlier in the week, scored a clutch last game win to catch up. The Zachary’s and Michael then moved into quick fifteen minute game playoffs with Zachary Lyandres falling out first, and Zachary Love losing in the final to Michael Aksen, making Aksen the winner, Love second, and Lyandres third.
The winner for the best notation throughout the week was Sophie Rasol who Johnson nominated for said honors, while the winners in Tanya’s problem solving competition were Zachary Lyandres in the older section, and Nicole Shtern in the younger section.
For the second week in a row, Phillip Blumin also won the “Survival in a Simul” award for lasting the longest amount of moves against the coaches in their daily simuls. Like Last week he took Johnson, and Danny forty plus moves, and against Johnson was also humorously checkmated with the move “Bb6” (sadly it happened one half-move later than last week’s similar simul result).
The best students in each group were: Andrew Volynsky in Johnson’s group, Connor Jordan in Tanya’s group, Andrew Zaslavsky in Genry’s group, Elisheva Drillich in Slava’s group, David Zhu in Solomon’s group, and Greg Volynsky in Danny’s group.
In sports the winners for individual age groups were: Andrew Volynsky in the 2004 group, Josh Lerman in the 2003 group, Daniel Khaitov in the 2002 group, Christopher Elson in the 2001 group, Zachary Love in the 2000 group, and Gregory Volynsky in the 1998 or older group.
Connor Jordan, and Zachary Love tied for best results in dodgeball, while Gregory Volynsky was Tanya’s choice for best soccer player.
The Friday blitz/bughouse team championships were won by “The Chess Masters of Doom” who were captained by Zachary Love, and included Joshua Lerman, Zachary Mankowitz, and Elisheva Drillich.
Art contest winners were Andrew Volynsky for his “King and Queen” (Arieh’s-i.e. the art teacher- choice) and Daniel Marbe for his “Chess Carousel” (ICA coaches choice).
We also added a new category called “Healthiest Lunch,” which awards a prize to the student with the healthiest lunch. On Thursday both Johnson, and Slava, picked one student each in this category. Johnson’s choice was Christopher Gu, while Slava picked Eitan Chechik.
By the way, that last one is probably more an award to parents, or grandparents for making sure their child, or grandchild eats right, so keep that in mind as you stuff in those carrots and apples into their lunch box on Wednesday night, mommies and daddies.
See most of you, and anyone new in week five people.
Week four saw a record number of students in the intermediate camp as Max Schwartz came in to help Sergey with the never before seen group of ten students. In the classical tournament, David Rubenfeld once again overcame David Shekhtman to claim first place in section one. In section two, a last day draw between Kenny Geiler and Ethan Klein netted Kenny first place by yet another slight half point.
Ari Shusterman won the problem solving competition with David Shekhtman a close second.
David Rubenfeld easily won the blitz tournament after taking out Sebastian Spitz and Ari in the final.
Surprisingly, David Rubenfeld was also the winner in the sports competition, the format of which gave points to every individual on teams comprised of different players. Each day, students played volleyball, soccer, dodgeball, and hot potato.
If you want to sign up for Sergey’s group and have a rating higher than 1600 don’t hesitate to call.
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