2023 Caveman Chess Camp Review

Background

Review

Results

Steps for 2024

Happy New Year Chess Campers!

This page provides a review of the 2023 camp and where we are in 2024 planning. Also provided are reminder links to the 2023 camp pictures.

We have been doing a great deal of analysis of the 2023 chess camp and considering many new ideas for the 2024 chess camp. As a result, planning for 2024 is behind schedule.

Background

Caveman Chess through its various camps have considered itself one of the few premier U.S. chess camps.  The Castle Chess Camp is another, National Chess Camp (formerly Western “States Invitational), and the Summer Chess Academy for Talented Youth (and other camps) by the Chesshire Academy – along with a few others from time to time. Castle and “WisChess-OleChess-Caveman Chess” are the longest and most consistent premier camps.

Caveman Chess has worked to distinguish itself versus other premier camps in the following ways:

• Camp within a Camp: We started and have maintained the camp within a camp concept, by having Explorer and Intensive Study groups, and several layers of groups within Intensive Study, always targeting a combination of player strength and age.

• Counselors: Our goal is to have a counselor for each class (1:1). This ratio has nearly doubled due to several cost-increasing factors post-COVID.

• Pricing: Caveman Chess has worked to have various levels of affordable pricing while overnight camp pricing has increased.

If we compare Caveman Chess and Most Premier Camps…

One item impacting pricing is that changes in employment laws have been forcing us to change the treatment of a camp counselor from an independent contractor working the week at a set price, to an employee working at an hourly rate subject to minimum wage and overtime – and since they are on call at all points of a day – this significantly raises costs and pushes down the number of counselors unless we push through price increases to fund the positions.

My wife Deb and I have run these camps in tandem since 1997. The past couple of years our team has been impacted by the loss of three of our four parents, and some significant health issues. That tended to occur late in the annual process close to camp timing. We have trained a couple of key personnel to assist us, followed in turn by the counselors and experienced staff. Deb has spent the last eight months in a boot to heal an Achilles partial tear and hundreds of microfractures in a heal. This spring she will finally have a hip replacement which we hope will correct all of her remaining leg issues.

Additionally, as the camp grew back to a normal size this year, we outsourced some tasks to third parties, including Uber Business for the shuttle service.  We assumed Uber would be a very reliable service. By off-loading tasks to bring campers to and from the airport, and to and from the uptown area (especially during the tournaments) and to and from Dury Lane for the theater night, that would be very helpful.

We interact with the college to set room use and dorm use assignments. We had great experiences with St. Olaf College and UW-Whitewater, but have had challenging experiences. With North Central and Elmhurst.  This has led to things like the changing of meeting rooms or tournament rooms mid-week, which of course adds to the challenges for the entire camp.

Another important factor is scheduling. Because some school districts get out very late, while others start very early, the effective period for scheduling is generally after June 15 and before August 15. Because of the US Open, and the associated high school and senior tournaments, we also avoid the first two weeks of August – and occasionally have to avoid the last week of July.

Additionally, there are major chess tournaments during the week of the fourth of July, and we try to avoid scheduling against the Castle Chess Camp and the Western States/National Camp in Tucson – as many players attend more than one overnight camp.

Then there are some key tournaments held in St. Louis (by the St. Louis Chess Club) typically in early to mid-July following the World Open; these events could conflict with many of our key instructors, but if we can schedule in a complementary fashion – instructors can hit our camp and St. Louis tournaments ‘in one trip.’

Finally, it’s important to understand some of the last things that happen in the camp process. In the last several weeks, this includes dorm assignments, class assignments, finalizing class exceptions and any changes.

Generally, a series of events caused our resources to be first over-stretched, and then overwhelmed. This sometimes happens for the first day, but this time lasted well into the middle of the week.

Several factors came together to cause this.

First, in the last couple of months before camp, the St. Louis Chess Club changed its normal schedule, which impacted the schedules of several of our experienced instructors. This required hunting for new instructors when other tasks should have been underway and raised the overall cost for instructors. 

Then, my wife’s medical issue flared up and she was unable to attend, and our key #2 coordinator also was required to be away.  The result is that I personally became overloaded.

This was compounded by the failure of the Uber Business shuttle system. We didn’t know at the time; this was a new service and was still experimental. (We have since had extensive conversations with them.) To make the story short, the result is that our shuttle service wasn’t working, and I spent significant time arranging to get people from the airport rather than focusing on other important camp services as a result. This put us behind on class assignments and the rotation schedule.

Further complicating things is that the University randomly delayed our registration to hold another registration earlier in the afternoon. This created people arriving at the camp who could not check in as scheduled. Additionally, the University had detailed layouts of the set-up needed but did not accomplish that.  This was the third year we worked with Elmhurst University, and the first year we had these types of issues.

Another contributing factor is that chess camps tend to have significant repeat campers from year to year, so the campers and parents are family with the camp, procedures, schedule, etc. In 2023 the camp grew by about 85 campers over prior years, thus a large number of campers were unfamiliar with the camp compared to our experience.

Additionally, related to the large number of new campers, we had significantly more requests to move up in class and to change tournament sections. Because people still had dated ratings due to a low number of over-the-board tournaments, we were more flexible on this than in most years. However, people seemed to assume that there is a direct correspondence between the class level and the tournament level. There isn’t, and that is done on purpose. The idea is for most groups to see a broader range of opponents to provide examples against a range of competition. It isn’t uncommon, for example, to see a student who has a 50% score in the class above, but a 25% score in the class below. This can indicate an issue we need to uncover to help the student review. Keep in mind this is training, not tournament play. While in a tournament, it can often be most beneficial to play-up, the same isn’t immediately true of a camp.

A further challenge was that Elmhurst University threw us some curves on dorm rooms. Our allotment of rooms was decreased, and the university was short of bedding. Consequently we had to double up some people, and purchase bedding for people who didn’t have enough

The impact of these factors is that a narrow group of key people at the camp became seriously overloaded. This made it increasingly difficult to get the camp back on track. Fortunately, we did have a good staff who stepped up, and several of the complaints we received from parents off-campus turned out to be nothing when we spoke to the camper’s directly on campus. (And yes, we made it very clear we wanted real feedback and would correct any issues - that there would be no backlash. Campers were adamant they were doing fine with their classes.)

For 2024, we are looking at the following:

• It is highly likely we will move from Elmhurst

• We have examined a few area colleges. Our first choice isn’t available in 2024 due to significant renovations on their dorms this summer.

• We are continuing to review three other choices. One we used in the past, with some issues, but their Conference and Camps team has turned over since we last used their site. Another is about 1.5 hours from Chicago, and though not quite as far, would return us to something close to “WisChess” days. A third is a Wisconsin college on the shore of Lake Michigan.

• We are also considering another alternative of doing a “hotel camp” for one year. This would provide some nice facilities and would offload all the “dorm” facilities to the hotel. This approach would allow us to continue to review various colleges to make a good and permanent choice

• In either case, we’ll likely have to increase the counseling staff, to ensure we avoid an overload as in this past year.

• All of these indicate we will likely have a cost increase. However, we have found an excellent local facility in Park Ridge, which allows us to easily have one or more day camps. For those who are interested in a lower-cost program, these could serve as an alternative. In 2021 the camp lost $15K. This past year due in part to the numerous issues, it lost over $20K. So we need to figure out a better pricing approach, since under our current approach, last-minute changes can be very costly to the camp.

We hope to have these issues addressed in the next 1-2 weeks, with an announcement no later than the end of January. 2023 campers will receive a discount to a 2024 camp.

If you have any questions, please email us https://www.cavemanchess.com/contact