Who says teaching chess can’t be fun (and funny)?

Years ago (circa 1988) for my own chess practice, I played against a stand alone computer with a built-in board. It worked by pressing the piece you wanted to move on its own square, then pressing the square where you moved it to. When the computer made its move, there were rows of lights along one vertical and one horizontal edge that lit up telling you in a matrix fashion (ala Battleship) what the computer wanted to do.

The computer pieces were small, the king no more than an inch and a half, so I usually set up my tournament board and pieces (much larger) and played the computer that way (with no computer pieces on the board).

When my son was three, he used to watch me play these chess games at the dining room table. While I played he would eye all the big pieces with round eyes lit with excitement. As the game progressed and pieces were inevitably captured, I would hand him the pieces and he would play with them while I fought the computer. Naturally, the knights were his favorite and yes, he would occasionally make neighing sounds. What a delight that was!

This arrangement worked for a year, then I decided to see if he would like to move the pieces for the computer, giving the appearance of playing against dad. He jumped at the opportunity, and as luck would have it, I had just decided to play the computer’s next higher level.

The game moved along nicely and we were having a lot of fun together. I made a mistake somewhere in the middle game and couldn’t recover, and ended up getting checkmated in the endgame. I said something like, “Well, I lost, son.” He looked up at me with a smile only sons can give their dads, and slipped off his chair and went running into the living room, while I reset the pieces on the board.

To my delight, off in the distance, in his four-year-old voice, he quipped, “Mom, I beat daddy at chess!”

Who was I to shatter that excitement?

And yes, he went on to play chess very successfully in scholastic tournaments, and today at the age of 34, still plays.

Is my child ready for a tournament? Part II

Once your child has shown you he has all of the tournament skills, you’re half way to being ready for a tournament. Why half way? Emotions. Losing is hard on players of any sport, but in chess, losing carries a special kind of personal impact. Most kids play team sports where the team loses, and there can be some anonymity. True, there can be some spectacularly public individual errors, like dropping a fly ball or striking out, but if the team wins, those errors are forgotten. Like singles tennis, when a chess players loses a tournament game, his teammates, coach, parents, and the opposing player’s teammates all know he lost. And no one else is responsible! He wasn’t the pitcher throwing the game of his life only to lose because of another player’s error. In chess you play your best and if you don’t win, it’s on you.

Sounds harsh doesn’t it? I mean, come on, it’s just a game after all, right? Yes, absolutely. The reality is that it’s highly probable that your child will lose at least some games in her first tournament, but there’ll be many more games to play. Your daughter could win the next game or the next several. She will learn something about the game and herself from a loss or even a string of losses.

Your job is to be able to provide the support your child needs after a loss. Remind her of the italicized comments above. Some kids can shake off a loss and are ready for the next game with no problems at all. Some players have trouble with losing and sometimes carry with them to the next game thoughts about what they did wrong in the previous game. Some kids are so upset they will cry. Some get angry at themselves and draw on that burning to play better. I’ve seen players lose a tough-fought game, buck up and beat the living daylights out of their next opponent. Some players were so good at this that they got a reputation and no one wanted to play them after a loss because it meant certain doom.

Your job is to know what will work best with your child. Comfort them or push them? That’s not up to me–each child is different–but what I did was remind them of the italicized portion above, ask if they knew how the game became a lost game (note I don’t ask, “do you know why you lost?” it’s always “How did the game become lost?”). This allows them to disassociate themselves from the loss, even if it’s ever so slightly, and look at the game objectively. Almost every time the reply was something like, yes, I hung a piece and missed it, or I moved such-and-such and got out of position.

You know your child best. You may have already seen how he handles losing, whether on a team sport, or perhaps just playing video games with his friends, or family.

Back to our original question: “How do I know whether my child is ready?” If she can demonstrate the skills and you’re confident in her ability to withstand losing, she’s ready.

Is my child ready for a tournament? Part I

“How do I know whether my child is ready?”

Perhaps every parent, whether familiar with the world of chess tournaments or not, asks this question.

The tournament environment is at once exciting and overwhelming to new players and parents. There appears to be some sort of order to everything, but it isn’t all quite clear to the novice.

Let’s look at the burning question about knowing if your child is ready, both in terms of skill and emotionally. The best way to prepare a player for a tournament is to work on the basic skills she should have, and make sure she has achieved those skills. Taking a player to a tournament without these basic and crucial skills would be like sending a batter to the plate without ever having seen a batting practice pitch.

Chess is a battle. It’s a game, yes, but it requires so much from an individual who is pitted against another person. Both want to win the game, but the player who makes the strongest moves, and keeps his emotions in check, stands the best chance of winning. Chess is one mind against the other. A chess player is alone. He must rely on his memory and ability to think through a problem. There’s no coach giving hints, like hold the bat up higher, and there’s no cheer squad, Saturday Night Live skits notwithstanding.

Basic tournament skills

To ensure your child has a good first tournament experience, I recommend that you use the checklist below. While all players, regardless of age or experience want to win every game played, it’s an unrealistic expectation, especially for new players. The average player probably wins two or three games in a five-game tournament. Yes, of course, there are exceptions, but setting realistic expectations is important, particularly for young players. A good tournament experience, in my eyes, is one where the child had fun, learned something new, made new friends, and wants to do it again. It is not whether he won a game or “performed” well enough to place high in the standings. If your child did play well, and won several games, and placed high in the standings, then your child may have the makings of becoming a very good player.

However, it’s been my experience, both personally and as a coach watching very good players on my team (and other teams), that today’s tournament performance is not a guarantee that the next tournament will be the same. In some cases, yes, this is true, but even very good players have off-days, and don’t play as well as usual–in baseball, this is called a hitting slump–and it happens for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is focus, or concentration, which can wane on “bad” days and affect play. Feeling ill has a direct negative effect on play and I recommend skipping a tournament if your child is ill. The other parents will thank you for not exposing their kids, and them, to a virus.

Tournament checklist

DEMONSTRATED SKILL OR KNOWLEDGE

           General

___       Three parts of the game.

o   Opening

o   Middlegame

o   Endgame

Opening

___        3 important ideas of the opening.

o   Center pawns

o   Knights & Bishops

o   Castle

___    Optional: 2 Openings each for white and black in response to white’s e4 and d4)

           e4

o   Ruy Lopez

o   Italian

d4

o   Queen’s Pawn game

o   Queen’s Gambit Declined (declined is the most often played)

          Tactics

___        Pins

___        Forks

___        Discovered attacks (check)

___        Skewer

___        Double attack

          End Game Checkmates

___        King and Two Rooks

___        King, Queen and Rook

___        King and Queen

___        King & pawn vs King End game – Rule of the square to get Queen

___        King & pawn vs King End game to get Queen

___        King and Rook

          Draws

___        Agreed upon – when to properly ask for a draw

___            Book

___                King vs King

___                King & Knight (or Bishop) vs King

___        Stalemate

          Special Rule

___        En Passant

Keeping score and using a chess clock (These are sometimes optional for elementary school players. Check with the tournament director before you sign up.)

___        Chess notation

___        Use a chess clock

Thursday: Is my child ready for a tournament? Part II