52 scholastic players turned out for the 2012 Northbridge Chess Camp, a Bloomington-Normal tradition started in 2001 by then-pastor Bill Barton. Leading the way were three Warren Scholars: Hanson Hao and Jason Daniels,of Bloomington, and Aydin Turgut, of Decatur.
The camp featured a week-long 5-round tournament, which was won with a perfect 5-0 score by Sam Heil (1763) who had to defeat Hanson (1712) and Blair Hu (1622) of Champaign to secure first place. Hanson and Aydin also met head-to-head in round 3 and after a tense game, Hanson was able to grind out a rook and pawn endgame to set up his showdown with Sam.
The camp featured three Illinois masters as instructors: IM Angelo Young, NM Gopal Menon, and NM Pete Karagianis. The top group of students (Green A) had an average rating of over 1600 and included top-rated Andrew Fei (1786) from Peoria. Jason Daniels and Mihir Bafna, of Bloomington, won the bughouse tournament on the final day but could not overcome the challenge finale against the bughouse powerhouse-duo “Gopalblanca” and “Ange-toly”. The camp also ran a week-long puzzle contest, which was won by Jason Daniels. Jason successfully solved all four challenges, including the following difficult mate:
Students from five cities attended the camp, which ran from July 23-27.
