My Chess Camp In New York

 

My second-ever chess camp was in New York City, in the summer, whereas my first was held in St. Louis during the winter.

Marshall Chess Club generously let us use its club as a place to hold the US Chess School. The field was very strong, with 14 NMs and a few FMs.

 (Photo by IM Greg Shahade.)

This group included me, Jennifer Yu, Akshita Gorti, David Brodsky, Aaron and Brandon Jacobson, Marcus and Matthew Miyasaka, Andrew Liu, Nicolas Checa, Joshua Sheng, Hans Niemann, John Michael Burke, Aravind Kumar, and Josh Hernandez-Camen.

We got to choose where to sit and I discovered some traits of all the people sitting at one table.

THE QUIET BACK-ROW GUYS:

This group featured Andrew Liu, Nicolos Checa, John Michael Burke, Josh Hernandez-Camen, Aaron Jacobson, Matthew and Marcus Miyasaka, and Joshua Sheng. These guys were basically older, maybe the average age of 14-15. They always thought a lot before raising their hand to answer a question.

THE ROWDY TALKY ONES:

This group featured younger kids, like Brandon Jacobson, Hans Niemann, Aravind Kumar, and David Brodsky. Hans was the one who would call out stupid answers to be funny, and I have to say, Brandon is really talkative. And it may not look like it, but David and Aravind can be super chatty.

THE PRETTY ONES:

There were only three girls: me, Akshita Gorti, and Jennifer Yu. Since there weren’t any other girls, I’m calling us the pretty ones.

And of course, there was one more group.

THE TEACHERS:

During the whole training session, we had three teachers.

Day 1: IM Greg Shahade

Day 2: GM Alexander Stripunsky

Day 3: IM Alex Ostrovskiy

Day 4 : Back to Greg.

 

DAY 1

On the first day of the chess school, my dad and I were having trouble navigating NYC.

We lived in a hotel in NJ that provided a shuttle to the subway station. When we arrived, there was a ton of people rushing to work. In NYC, on a subway, you must first get out a door to this cramped little space, where you then get off the train. And since there was no space in the car itself, we were squeezed in that tight little space with about 10 other people.

When we finally got off, we had to walk about a mile through the sadly littered and polluted streets of NYC. We finally arrived at the road where Greg had said the Marshall Chess Club was. As my dad and I looked around for the club a kid and his dad passed us in the opposite direction. He had this weird grin on his face, and I wasn’t sure if he was a chess player or not. I later realized he was John Michael Burke.

As we still weren’t sure where the club was we kept walking down the street, when someone called “Hey, Percy!” (my dad’s name). It turned out to be Greg, and he pointed us in the right direction as we followed him to the Marshall.

After all the morning chaos, we were finally settled down and ready to start the camp. Greg told us about the schedule and gave us a lecture about not being too loud and being nice to others, stuff like that. Then he announced that we would be having a positional understanding test, with 60 puzzles, and we had to solve it in 30 minutes.

Whoever had the most correct would get a free pass in the first round of the blitz tournament.

The puzzles weren’t tremendously difficult, but the time limit made it hard. The common themes were:

I ended up with 30 out of 60, which is OK, I suppose. The person with the highest score turned out to be Brandon Jacobson, so he got a bye in the first round of the blitz tournament.

DAY 2

We had Alex Stripunsky come over to teach us about typical h7/h2 sacrifices. It was quite easy at the first, and gradually became much more difficult. In one example, when Hans suggested giving up the rook as one of his jokes, he turned out to be right!

We also had the first round of the blitz tournament today. As promised, Brandon Jacobson got a free pass and the rest of us fiercely battled. I was paired against David Brodsky and lost. Hans was absent for a bit of the class and the whole first round of the blitz tournament. He came back with a Snapple.

Akshita told me that apparently he had to use the bathroom, because on this particular day, the Marshall had no water. So he went to Lenny’s, a nice nearby sub shop just around the corner. But he had to buy something to use the bathroom so he waited in a long line to buy a Snapple -- which was how he ended up back at the Marshall Chess Club after 30 minutes with a Snapple. Greg joked that he forfeited the first round of the blitz tournament. But we had saved his game for last, so he still got to play.

DAY 3

This third day wasn’t like anything I had ever known before. IM Alex Ostrovskiy talked about how he made the big jump from master to international master and gave us tips, such as expanding your opening preparation and adding strange sidelines so your opponents couldn’t prepare. He also went to a US Chess School a few years ago, and joked that maybe in a few years, we would be the ones making a speech.

After lunch, we went back to the blitz tournament. At this point Jennifer, Marcus, Matthew, me, and possibly Aaron went upstairs to play bughouse, as we had all lost the first round. When we went back downstairs about 30 minutes later, they were playing the finals: Joshua vs Brandon. Their first game led to a quick draw, so the second game’s time control was changed to bullet with one minute for each person. In the end Joshua won.

DAY 4

There was nothing much on Day 4, since the Marshall was having a tournament.

Greg gave us the 30-minute test again and I scored 32-33. Afterwards, we kids who weren’t playing in the Marshall’s tournament played some bughouse upstairs and then Greg gave us a position to see how to defend. In the end, it turned out to be the most unlikely move possible: sacrificing your queen for absolutely no material in return, with your opponent having three ways to take it.

But after Akshita, David, Aaron, Jennifer and I discussed it, we agreed the moves made sense. The queen was covering the escape square for the king, and Black still had a rook and two pieces. After lunch, my dad and I left to go back to Massachusetts, and I said my goodbyes. It turned out to be a fun learning experience where chess kids could hang out and just enjoy ourselves while improving our chess skills.

I would like to thank IM Greg Shahade for organizing the camp and GM Alexander Stripunsky and IM Aleksandr Ostrovskiy for guest lecturing. Special thanks to Dr. Jim Roberts and the Scheinberg family, the sponsors and the Marshall Chess Club for being so generous by hosting the camp.