ICA Summer Camp 2010 Day Camp Week 8
…and then there was one.
Week of chess camp that is.
Of course week eight wasn’t it and unlike week seven didn’t play games with the weather and our outside activities.
In other week eight news, our coaching staff again ended up including Ivette “Capablanca’s Cuban Compatriot” Rubio, as well as Ilya “Irina Levitina’s brother” Levitin. Both did a great job with their kids given that Ilya was filling in on short notice and this was only Ivette’s second week of action.
Our tournament sections were mostly dominated by a single individual, with only one section coming down to a last day play-off. In section seven Tyler Hupert went undefeated over nine rounds, winning eight and only drawing the last round game against Paul Smelyantsev, to claim clear first place. In second, and third place, decided on tie-breaks were Ashley Jiang, and Alexis Kvetnoy who split the prizes in that order because Ashley beat Alexis in their individual game. In section six, the results came down to a last day play off as Michelle Kvetnoy and David Ionita fought it out over two days to decide who will take home the main trophy. Both drew their first individual game, after which Michelle lost to third placing Daniel Marbe. Going into the final round David, up by a full point (since he beat Daniel Marbe in their game) needed only a draw to secure the title. Michelle needing a win to tie on points and claim first based on the individual meetings, did just that, finally ending matters with a seventh rank queen-rook battery checkmate to claim the gold medal.
Section four was dominated by Idan Glickman who won all his games with his only scare coming against Ben Dubetsky who was up a queen late in the middlegame but blundered and allowed Idan to go undefeated on his way to first place. Vivek and Derek played it out for second and third with Vivek coming out on top over Derek, and claiming second place because of it.
Section three was also dominated by one individual with Daniel Zolty winning all his games and securing first before the final round on Friday morning. In it, Zolty was extended deep by Victor Ionita, who based on Slava’s advise utilized the “Parham Attack” (1.e4 e5 2. Qh5!?) to gain a superior position which would have paid off had Victor recognized but a single crushing tactical sacrifice on g6. Alas with Victor missing his chance Daniel consolidated his position and ended up coming out victorious in the end. Sasha Konovalenko took second place with wins against everyone but Daniel in an individual game that saw inspiring play from both top finishers.
The prize for best notation went to little Emily Dubetsky who despite being extra small and only needing to write down a certain amount of moves, always asked the coaches if she could write just a little extra.
The winners in the problem solving competition were Derek Zhou for the older section, and Alexis Kvetnoy in the younger section.
Best students in each group were Christiana Hubbard in Robert’s group, Joshua Hubbard in Ilya’s group, David Ionita in Slava’s group, Josh Clune in Hana’s group, Nathan Clune in Max’s group, and Eliran in Ivette’s group.
Winners in the simul sections were: Sasha Konovalenko for a 47 move game against Ivette in the older sections, and Paul Smelyantsev for 25 moves against Max in the younger sections.
The winners in sports were: Ben Pyatski in the youngest group, Ashley Jiang in the second youngest, Sasha Konovalenko in the third group, Michael Sun in the fourth group, Vivek Gogliani in the fifth group, and Robert Abrahams in the oldest group.
In team sports Idan Glickman won for soccer, and Daniel Zolty won for dodgeball.
On Friday we had our annual team events, with Hana’s team of “Whatever” winning the relay race competition (the team included: Josh Clune, Derek, Emily, Ben D, and Michelle).
Blitz/bughouse saw our most exciting finale to date, as the final result came down to the very last round, and in fact the final game of the tournament. With three teams in contention and Sasha Konovalenko’s “chess shoes” (Sasha, Michelle, Alexis, Jonathan Marbe, ) leading by a point going into the last round, Daniel Zolty’s “We will win (Daniel, Idan, Paul and Emmett)” and Vivek Gogliani’s “Don’t laugh at our team name cause we will beat you,” (Vivek, Josh, Nathan, Christiana,) needed to make up some serious ground to overtake the leaders. Since “We will win” was only one point behind the “Chess Shoes” and was playing them in the final round it seemed “Don’t laugh…..” who were down by four points and not playing the other leading teams were totally out of contention. However, in an amazing come from behind upset “Don’t laugh…” swept the “The Magicians” in the last round to tie “We will win,” who scored three out of four points to defeat the “Chess shoes.” Since both teams were tied with the same score, the result had to be decided by the individual match result between the teams, which “Don’t laugh…” won with a convincing four out of four points.
Lastly, Michelle Kvetnoy, and Ashley Jiang shared the art prize honors, while Ben Dubetsky continued the Dubetsky family dominance by winning the healthy lunch competition which his sister Emily also won last week.
Sergey’s Master Camp
In Sergey’s camp the main tournament was dominated by Charles Jiang (Ashley’s older brother) who beat both second/third placing David Rubenfeld, and Haik to claim clear first place. The blitz tournament was won by Eric Kong who beat Alex Poste in the additional tie-break game to claim first (both were tied after all rounds were concluded).
In problem solving, a tight battle between Eric Kong, and David Rubenfeld came down to a single final point that helped David Rubenfeld finally earn top honors.
In sports the camp was split into three individual groups with Ben winning in the younger group, Alex winning in the middle group, and David Rubenfeld overtaking Michael R to win in the oldest group.
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