Day 2 Summary
Day 2 Summary at the Prairie Chess Camp
We had another great day. Everyone got into the groove and we stayed on schedule with all of our lessons and afternoon tournament. I was able to take more photos posted on our Chess Camp Day 2 online album at https://photos.app.goo.gl/G7o58XA2q92RYEkA9. I added information on some of the photos explaining the action!
In yesterday’s update, I explained that we broke up into groups and that students rotated through instructors. Each instructor has a specific area that they focus their lessons on throughout the week and with each group, they adjust the difficulty of the lesson to the level of the students. We actually have this mapped out throughout the week with each hour by class and specific exercise. We have been “blocking” one class with Gokul in the mornings. We blocked the green group on Monday and Tuesday and tomorrow, we will start rotating the other groups (red, yellow, and blue) into the Block session with Gokul. The other three groups will then rotate among Alex, Joseph, and Trevor.
Trevor’s endgame topics included working on Rook endgames with all of the groups. This included some fundamental positions with rook and pawn against rook, the strategy of cutting off the opposing king, and some more complex rook endgames and emphasized the importance of an active rook and king, and being willing to give up material for activity. Joseph had the students learn of the famous “bishop sacrifice” against the castled king. (This is also known in chess circles as the “Greek Gift” in the spirit of the Trojan horse fable where what looks like a gift of a free bishop is really a deep tactical threat to checkmate the king). The beauty of this line is that it demonstrates how to calculate a series of “forcing moves,” a concept we emphasize in chess camp. He also worked on the strategic concept of "good" and "bad" bishop as demonstrated in one of his own games. Gokul finished up with the beginner class today, introducing new concepts such as the tactic of "pin" and "fork." This will prepare them for rotation into the other instructors including Alex's "Tactics Class." I will highlight this in tomorrow's email including a demonstration of some of the tactics puzzles that our chess students are solving.
In the afternoon, we have been holding tournaments with the purpose to apply the learning from the morning lesson into practice over the chessboard. Of course, we want all of the games to be competitive learning experiences and try to match up students equitably. Today, we grouped students into 4 sections and they played three games with a time control of Game in 30 minutes. All students were required to write their moves down in their tournament scorebooks. Following the game, the two players then met with a member of the tournament staff to review the game and identify what they did well and where they could improve. Results of the tournament game from Tuesday are posted on the chess camp website at www.chessiniowa.org. I have included a short explanation of how to read the shorthand in the chart.
We enjoyed food and recess today. Snacks, lunch, and recess went smoothly, thanks in large part to our staff, Audrey, Eli, and Kai. Morning snacks included Chex mix and GoGurt. We brought lunch in from Taco Bell, and afternoon snacks included a snack mix and cheese heads. Apples, pears, and bananas were offered throughout the day. We had recess after lunch and at snack time we let the kids play outside and run off a little energy.
I took more pictures in the classroom today. Here is the link to the photo album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SwoCCpW9QNdhxBht5. Enjoy!
As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Take care,
Jim
Day 2 Tournament Results
Each player has a pairing number in front of their name. The player's result and their opponent's pairing number are listed for each round. For example, "W61" means Won against player number 61.
Prairie Chess Camp Day 2 Tournament -- Group A
No. Gr Name(Team) Rate Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Score
1. 3 Huang, Eric (Yueze) (2) ...... 980 W13 W9 W5 3.0
2. 4 Veeder, Cole (4) ............. 950 D8 W13 W6 2.5
3. 2 Holm, Kelton (1) ............. 1191 W10 L5 W9 2.0
4. 7 Nixon, Nolon A (3) ........... 961 W11 L6 W12 2.0
5. 4 Ajoykumar, Aarud (5) ......... 842 W12 W3 L1 2.0
6. 5 Coriglione, Lucius (6) ....... 800 W7 W4 L2 2.0
7. 6 Niemeier, Connor (13) ........ 272 L6 W11 W10 2.0
8. 5 Senft, William (11) .......... 538 D2 L10 W13 1.5
9. 8 Hoovik, Aidan Jame (7) ....... 698 W14 L1 L3 1.0
10. 6 Wong, Vincent H (8) .......... 647 L3 W8 L7 1.0
11. 6 Christianson, Oscar (10) ..... 567 L4 L7 W14 1.0
12. 5 Walstrom, Tyler (12) ......... 365 L5 W14 L4 1.0
13. 6 Kandel, Nirvan (9) ........... 605 L1 L2 L8 0.0
14. 6 Holst, Tyler L (14) .......... 264 L9 L12 L11 0.0
Prairie Chess Camp Day 2 Tournament -- Group B
No. Gr Name(Team) Rate Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Score
1. 6 Yang, Daniel (9) ............. 528 W18 W17 W4 3.0
2. 6 Kim, Evan (21) ............... unr W5 W15 W6 3.0
3. 6 Rocha, Graham (2) ............ 708 D13 W21 D10 2.0
4. 5 Donato, Davi Henri (4) ....... 632 W19 W7 L1 2.0
5. 8 Schmitz, Nicholas (6) ........ 590 L2 W22 W13 2.0
6. 7 Criswell, Henry E (7) ........ 577 W20 W9 L2 2.0
7. 8 Zoll, Hunter (10) ............ 420 W22 L4 W17 2.0
8. 7 Merrill, Evan (11) ........... 368 L17 W16 W18 2.0
9. 5 Ton, Chan Phong (14) ......... 164 W14 L6 W15 2.0
10. 7 London, Benjamin F (16) ...... 101 D11 W12 D3 2.0
11. 5 Bujakowska, Krysty (5) ....... 594 D10 L13 W21 1.5
12. 3 Kandel, Prisha (12) .......... 334 D21 L10 W20 1.5
13. 6 Ibeawuchi, Justin (13) ....... 289 D3 W11 L5 1.5
14. 3 Wong, Aaron H (3) ............ 635 L9 L18 W19 1.0
15. 8 Ellerhoff, Odyn Sa (8) ....... 573 W16 L2 L9 1.0
16. 5 Shah, Riddhi (24) ............ unr L15 L8 W22 1.0
17. 5 Murphy, Sean (23) ............ unr W8 L1 L7 1.0
18. 6 Chen, Nathan (19) ............ unr L1 W14 L8 1.0
19. 8 Pospisil, Geo Jack (15) ...... 102 L4 D20 L14 0.5
20. 8 Kraus, Cole (22) ............. unr L6 D19 L12 0.5
21. 5 Blum, Martin (17) ............ unr D12 L3 L11 0.5
22. 5 Drahos, Weston (20) .......... unr L7 L5 L16 0.0
Prairie Chess Camp Day 2 Tournament -- Group C
No. Gr Name(Team) Rate Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Score
1. 5 Verry, Stellah (4) ........... 122 W14 W4 W6 3.0
2. 1 Chimenti, Liana (1) .......... 416 W12 D3 W8 2.5
3. 4 Naveen-Kumar, Siddharth (12) . unr W8 D2 W10 2.5
4. 4 Rocha, James (13) ............ unr W9 L1 W11 2.0
5. 5 Daly, Ian (11) ............... unr W11 L6 W13 2.0
6. 4 Castro, Amon (10) ............ unr W10 W5 L1 2.0
7. 3 Kissel, Weston (2) ........... 175 D13 L8 D9 1.0
8. 3 Wood, Kale (3) ............... 148 L3 W7 L2 1.0
9. 3 Nixon, Navianna (5) .......... 119 L4 D13 D7 1.0
10. 4 Cavalier, Kellen R (6) ....... 109 L6 W14 L3 1.0
11. 3 Brewer, Hazel (7) ............ 103 L5 W12 L4 1.0
12. 3 Gurtovaya, Zhanna (9) ........ 101 L2 L11 W14 1.0
13. 3 Christophersen, Oskar (8) .... 101 D7 D9 L5 1.0
14. 5 Said, Joury (14) ............. unr L1 L10 L12 0.0
Prairie Chess Camp Day 2 Tournament -- Group D
No. Gr Name(Team) Rate Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Score
1. 1 Brown, Elias (1) ............. 181 W11 W9 W4 3.0
2. 2 Karanam, Niksheeth (6) ....... unr W6 W10 W9 3.0
3. 2 Szymanski, Sam (11) .......... unr D10 D7 W8 2.0
4. 2 Nicola, Lasya (9) ............ unr W8 W5 L1 2.0
5. 1 Hajek, Bennet (5) ............ unr W7 L4 D6 1.5
6. 0 Gurung, Nirvick (4) .......... unr L2 W11 D5 1.5
7. 1 Bussewitz, Bo (2) ............ unr L5 D3 D10 1.0
8. 1 Yang, Jayson (12) ............ unr L4 W12 L3 1.0
9. 2 Said, Adam (10) .............. unr W12 L1 L2 1.0
10. 1 Netolicky, Cooper (8) ........ unr D3 L2 D7 1.0
11. 1 Li, Chale (7) ................ unr L1 L6 D12 0.5
12. 0 Gurtovaya, Dasha (3) ......... unr L9 L8 D11 0.5