Summer Knights Chess Camp conducted by the Madison City Chess League during the last week of June introduced more kids to the game of chess and offered experienced tournament players lessons to help improve their game at every level.  New this year was the addition of a blitz clinic to help tournament players hone their skills in shorter blitz games that lasted 5 minutes per side in a tournament held during the camp. Instructors at the camp were National Master Sam Copeland; National champion coach, USCF Senior Tournament Director and FIDE Arbiter Bill Nash, and former State Chess Champion Will Stevenson.  Assisting our instructors were Rainbow Chess Team sponsor Nancy Brandon, and student volunteers Ben Kosan, Maanasi Limaye, and Jenson WIlhelm.

Outdoor Chess Classroom

Each chess camp class had the opportunity to rotate through the new Outdoor Chess Classroom at Rainbow Elementary in Madison, Alabama.  This new experience was a favorite among campers.  By dividing into teams, students were able to collaborate and strategize with others before making moves and apply what they had been learning during the camp.

Beginning Competition Chess Camp divides into teams to play a game.

Top Campers

Top Campers were selected by the instructors of each camp who demonstrated good behavior and attention, showed good sportsmanship and participated in exercises like puzzle solving to demonstrate the skills being learned during camp.  Selection of Top Camper was quite difficult and the larger classes even had runner-up awards because there were so many excellent students this week.

LEARN TO PLAY Top Campers (pictured below) were:  Kyle Jordan and Thy Phan and runners-up were  Owen Lang and Vivian Chau.

BEGINNING COMPETITION Top Camper was Audrey Holschen with Runner-Up  Minh Phan.

RECREATION Chess Camp members pictured below made it a tough decision, but Own Bruyns (below center) won the Top Camper Medal.

INTERMEDIATE COMPETITION Camp's Top Camper was Luke Chynoweth, pictured (below) next to NM Sam Copeland.

 Josh Lin was Top Camper for ADVANCED COMPETITION Chess Camp.

Blitz Clinic and Tournament

A new edition to the instructional rotation was the addition of a Blitz Clinic conducted by National Master Sam Copeland.  His clinic helped students focus on time management and how Blitz should be played.  This culminated in a Summer Blitz Tournament held Thursday evening where 26 students competed for medals.

Left:  NM Sam Copeland instructing during the Blitz Clinic.                                                                                     Right:  First  Round of the Summer Blitz Tournament with Chief TD Bill Nash explaining the rules.

Blitz Tournament Winners (L to R):  Mohak Agarwalla (1st), Jenson Wilhelm (2nd), Om Badhe (3rd), Geon Park (4th), Will Fox (5th).  Not pictured:  Constance Wang (top female)

The Summer Blitz tournament was enjoyed by all.  MCCL is planning to conduct quarterly Blitz tournaments to help our kids maintain those skills.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Did we mention that the kids had a lot of fun during chess camp?  Yes, there was classroom instruction time for each level of camper, but there also was time for some snack breaks or smaller group play over the board, on computers and outdoors.  We wanted to make sure our campers knew how to access their chesskid.com accounts so they could continue to work on chess skills after the camp was over.

The Learn to Play Chess class pairs up and starts to play games with each other in the Library Media Center.

NM Sam Copeland started both Intermediate and Advanced Competition Camps by playing a clock simul against all the campers.

The Madison City Chess League would like to thank Rainbow Elementary Principal Dorinda White and Assistant Principal Michael Gunner for hosting the Summer Knights Chess Camp and making it another great success.