“Go Team” East Results; “Arrrrrr” “Geeee” 
Three Offensive Rookie Of The Year!

If your question to the above heading is, “What?” then that is exactly what Max, Evan, Hana, and Danny asked when the tournament organizers awarded them the prize for “best scholastic team.” The prize, awarded to the best team with members still in high school, was given to a team whose members are not only well past those awkward years, but are far beyond the experimental stages of college as well.  The team “Rg3! Offensive Rook of the Year” (Max, Hana, Evan, Danny) also won for best team name (A football reference!? Gambit that paid off) and also won four of their six matches, while drawing the other two.  As a compliment to the integrity of the organizers the team’s entry fee was returned for the mix-up that placed them in the scholastic section and out of the running for the main prizes.

Things were different as “Knight and Day” for another ICA team called, “Chess Night and Day” which played four matches up (i.e. against higher average rated teams) and won five overall, while only losing one.  The team comprised of Igor Yeliseyev, Eugene Sokolovsky, Haik Der Manuelian, and Andy Chen, won the honors for best team under 2100.

ICA’er Emre “CornStalk Defense Expert” Alptuna, a member of the “Dragon Knights” (a reference to the mighty Aemon ‘the dragon-knight’ Targareyen perhaps?), scored the biggest upset in a single tournament game and won the subsequent prize.  The hapless victim was 1620 while Emre was obviously a very underrated 969, a difference math experts would estimate as 651 rating points.

The team of “ICA 3” (i.e. The Coaches) also did very well winning four of their six matches. Comprised of ICA coaches, Solomon Lerner, Ivette Rubio, Genry Krichevsky, Arjun Mayer, and ICA parent  Dmitry Volkov employed an alternate so Ivette, and Solomon could switch off and work at the school on certain days.

Nine ICA teams Participated at Amateur Team East this year.