ICA Summer Camp 2010 Day Camp Week 6
As the summer winds down to its frigid, and fall-like conclusion we at the ICA march on with our “resign-less” chess strategy even in the face of the odd tears from the odd student. While it may seem terrible for kids to be upset about getting checkmated some ten to twenty moves after they lose most of their pieces, the more important thing is they care about the result enough to be upset with their performance, and should thereby strive to improve.
Tears, as it happens, are much better than apathy which signals a lack of desire to believe in one’s own mental ability and perseverance at the chess board. While I won’t say exactly which kids cried after losing, one who did at the beginning of the week, ended up finishing at the top of their section and winning a medal.
In section three Connor Cabrera won first place, with Michael Zheng second, and Josh Lerman third. Section four was won by Sam Fried, with three people (Ben Mankowitz, Idan Glickman, and Elad) tied for second/third place. Section five, which only had four competitors, was won by Daniel Klevak, who came from behind on the last day of competition to take first place after an upset win over tournament leader and previous week’s winner Zachary Mankowitz. A strong attack by Zachary fell apart as Daniel Klevak bided his time and struck at his opponent’s uncastled king with queen-like precision. Section six, was won by Sophie Rasol who beat out second placing David Chang by half a point after David drew a game in the second to last round. David and Sophie’s game was drawn as well after David, up two rooks versus a knight, blundered both pieces. Michelle Kvetnoy took third place behind David and Sophie.
The prizes for notation were won by Ayden Barrios in the younger section, who at five years old made fewer mistakes, and complained way less than kids twice his age. Michael Gleyzer won the prize for notation in the older section after a marked improvement in his notation from the previous week.
Simul winners were: Lilla Cabrera in the younger section for a game lasting twenty five moves against our newest coach Ivette Rubio, and Eitan for a forty two move game against Johnson.
Michael Zheng won the problem solving competition.
The best students in the study groups were: Daniel Zolty in Solomon’s group, Daniel Klevak in Slava’s group, Sam Fried in Richard’s group, Alexis Kvetnoy in Robert’s group, Ayden Barrios in David’s group, Idan in Ivette’s group, and Max Perlman in Johnson’s group.
Sports winners were Sophie Rasol in the 2004 group, Josh Lerman in the 2003 group, Zachary Mankowitz in the 2002-2001 group, Idan Glickman in the 2000 group, Elad in the 1999 group, and his brother Eitan in the 1998 or older group. Nicholas won the soccer prize, with Josh Lerman winning the dodgeball prize, and Daniel Zolty taking the basketball prize.
On Friday, as usual we held relay races and the blitz/bughouse team competition with the winners being the Solomon led Flying Marshmallows ( Eitan, Daniel Zolty, Sophie Rasol, Josh Lerman, Michelle Kvetnoy, Alex Zheng) in the relay races, and “Team Ayden” (Ayden Barrios, and coaches Johnson, Robert, and David) in blitz bughouse. Since Team Ayden had three coaches, we also gave the best all student team of the “Winners” (Ben Mankowitz, Zach Mankowitz, Alex and Michael Zheng) a prize for taking second place. Though the “Undefeatables” (Connor Cabrera, Lilla Cabrera, Sophie Rasol, and Danny Cho) tied the “Winners” with 14.5 points out of 24, in their individual match the “Winners” beat the “Undefeatables” 3.5 to .5.
Lastly, Vidur Joshi won the prize for having the healthiest lunch over the span of the two healthy lunch days of Thursday, and Friday.
Sergey’s Master camp was split into two groups with the stronger students working with him, and the younger ones working with his wife Tanya.
There was one single section tournament for both groups, and it was a no contest with David Rubenfeld leading all the way up until the last round. Eric Kong, who both Sergey and Tanya praised for his effort, beat David to force a three way tie for first between himself, Kenny Geiler and Sebastian Spitz. After a mini-playoff, neither player held the advantage, forcing a computer to finally award official first place to Sebastian even though Eric and Kenny were still officially tied with him.
Sebastian also dominated the single section blitz tournament winning with a score of 8.5 out of 9 points.
In problem solving, Nicholas Katz won in the younger section, while Kenny Geiler and David Rubenfeld won in the older section.
In sports, Alex Poste won despite not being especially athletic but being on the most winning teams over the course of the whole week.
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