My kid play chess? You’re kidding, right?

Depending on your child’s age, if you ask whether he would like to learn to play chess, you may get a “Huh?” or a shrug, or an “Oh, I guess,” and if you’re really lucky, an eye roll.

In an age where our children’s attention is pulled first one way then another through their activities, as well as Smartphones, Wii, Play Station, X-box, and PC games, it’s a wonder they can keep up with anything. Not to mention the challenges you face as their chauffeur and administrative assistant, and yet remaining the parent.

The question isn’t always whether they want to play, but how you can entice them to try it. One thing you might try is to get the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, which tells the true story of Josh Waitzkin. At the age of seven, Josh began playing chess, and I won’t give away the story except to say that he’s now an adult and is ranked as an International Master (just below Grandmaster). Josh is a terrific young man, and when my son, Nathan, played in the 2001 Supernationals, held in Kansas City, Nathan got to speak to Josh for a few minutes while getting his autograph. Josh has a quick and ready smile, and is wonderfully friendly. Not your stereotypical chess player.

What do I mean by that remark? Chess isn’t just for geeks, nerds, or whatever labels folks like to assign to people who choose to exercise their mind. Chess appeals to people of all ages, genders, and professions. I’ve played tournament games against truck drivers, doctors, lawyers, ministers, accountants, government employees, computer programmers, teachers, PhDs, and high school drop outs. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

Nowadays, students are rarely known by one label, the athlete, the honor student, the artist, the geek. They are well-rounded. Today’s young people are busy. They have lots of activities, some think too many, but that’s a topic best discussed elsewhere. It was my experience, and I knew of other coaches who had similar experiences, while coaching chess for elementary and high school students, that chess was only a part of these young people’s lives. Many played sports; baseball, football, basketball, and were starters on their teams. Many were good students, some outstanding, others struggled in school, but all loved chess.

Some of the things about chess that attract people are its logic, purity, and variability. No two games are exactly the same. The permutations of chess are staggering. If you’re interested in numbers, the number of possible positions is somewhere on the order of 10⁵⁰, or a ten followed by fifty zeroes. If you wrote the number one on the goal line of a football field, and wrote a zero on each yard line going toward the other goal line, the last zero would be on the fifty yard line! I don’t know about you, but this is a number just too big for me imagine. In reality, though, there are plenty of games that start out exactly the same, and then one of the players makes a move that is called a variation, which is like taking the left fork in the road instead of the right, and the game takes on a completely different path and tone.

Chess is a wonderful game. It pits one person’s mind against another’s. Teaching your child or a team of players to play the game well is a rewarding experience. No matter how well you yourself play the game, teaching the game to someone else can seem daunting, but that’s what my blog is for. It will give you the tools and guidance to not only teach children how to play the game, but to have fun at the same time.