Chess Camp: 2008 ICA Chess Camp Week 3 Report (7/14

Twenty nine kids attended week three: 11 new kids and one new coach – Hana Itkis. Hana is an experienced chess player (one of the strongest in the country among girls U21), who decided to try herself as a coach. There were four young and talented kids in Hana’s class: Connor Cabrera, Edward Musheyev, Ben Mankowitz and Idan Glickman.

As in the first two weeks, the main chess tournament was organized in three groups. In section 1 the strongest (based on results of the two previous weeks) chess player in camp – David Shekhtman was able to play with players at his level: Eyal Koren and Genry Krichevsky. Eyal Koren won section 1.

There were 8 players in section 2. Gilad Drillich was extremely focused and concentrated during the tournament, and therefore showed amazing results: he won all his games and got 1^st place (three full points ahead of second). By the way it was a great week for Gilad who won almost all of the competitions he had participated in.

As always, section 3 gathered the most kids – 18. For most of the tournament three young and talented chess players – Connor Cabrera, Edward Musheyev and Idan Glickman were leading together, but at the end Idan lost to both Edward and Connor who tied for the 1^st place (with 7 points out of 10)

2001 – 1^st place Roland Yusim (finally! Ronald was close to winning before, but could not quite finish first)

1993-1997 – 1^st place David Shekhtman (it was a very tough competition and David won in the last minute)

Best Students (each coach selects his best student of the week based on 2 hours daily chess classes)

In the morning, relay races took place between 4 teams (each team consisted of 6 people). Tataiana Grabuzov’s team (Eyal, Noah, Ben, Zachary, Gary) came in 1^st place. Each team member received a special prize

In the afternoon – blitz tournament in three sections. Nobody was able to challenge Eyal Koren in the main section and he got 1^st place without any problems. In sections, two & three the competition was very intense and only last round cleared the situation: Noah Stein won section 2, while the winner of section 3 appeared to be a surprise for all – young Liyan Cheung! We have to say that Liyan achieved huge progress within the two weeks of the camp that he attended

Another important challenge that took place within the week – was the problem solving competition under Tatiana Grabuzova’s supervision. Unfortunately, just a few students chose to participate in this activity, which is very important or chess improvement. Once again Gilad surpassed the rest!

Last – ‘best picture’ competition attracted many students. The pictures were displayed for everyone to view and judge. Jason Won (camp art teacher, Arie Zeldech, said that Jason is a very talented and mature artist!) received 100% of the votes and won this competition. Tied for 2^nd: Bertina Kudrin, Michelle Musheyev, Rachel Won, Rachel Boutom