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

Teaching chess – some techniques

While playing chess is fun, teaching chess is flat out a blast. Teaching chess is really no different from teaching any other kind of board game, like Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, or Risk. We start with the board [a map of the world –  64 light and dark squares] and the pieces [a colorful plastic marker – Knights and Rooks and Queens, oh my]. Then how to move, [roll the dice – move the chess piece], the consequences of some moves [landing on Boardwalk with a hotel – putting your Knight where your opponent can take it for nothing] and how you win the game [take over the world in Risk – checkmate the King].

I’ll grant you that chess is more complicated than those games and it will take longer than a few minutes for anyone, not just a child, to learn to play a complete game. However, it’s still just teaching a game, and we break it down into small, easily digestible bits of information.

Let me illustrate: The first time I took my then four-year-old son outside to play catch with his brand new glove, he did really well for the first three throws, then to my horror on the next one, he just didn’t get the glove up high enough and the baseball sailed right over the web and smacked him in the forehead. Square on. We were only about six feet apart, so it mostly just made his eyes water and left a swell-looking red spot on which I’m pretty sure you could see a seam mark. 

After a little bit, we started up again and I took the “teaching moment” to tell him, again, to watch the ball go into the glove. What I didn’t do is explain trajectory, ball speed, and  anticipating the landing point because he wasn’t ready for that advanced information. We’ll keep things simple, until they aren’t anymore, then we’ll slow down even more to ensure both you and your child are first still having fun, and secondly that he’s grasping the new concepts.

Chess is full of teaching moments, and nothing is quite as wonderful as when your child has an “ah ha” experience. It might be when she first sees a checkmate three moves ahead, or she might make a move you didn’t expect, and it’s a sound and strong move.

No one knows your son like you do. You know his personality, his likes, his dislikes. You know his limits. But one thing I’ve discovered over the years of coaching chess, is that young players will continually surprise you with their perceptiveness and understanding of the game far beyond your expectations. 

Don’t sell your son short. Using patience and patience and patience, repeat the lesson until you’re sure he’s ready to move on. Sometimes you’ll decide to move on and discover you need to backtrack a bit. Just remind your child of the forgotten information, and move ahead.

As you are playing a game with your son, keep in mind that mistakes will happen. He’ll make a weak, maybe disastrous (from the game point of view) move, and the game would be over in a just a few more moves. This is teaching moment. One of my favorite and effective methods is the “Take-back” rule. It’s just like it sounds. I tell my student to take back the move he just made, and look for a stronger one. I also immediately explain why the move was weak.

We all have our preferences in the way we communicate, and my choice is to label the move as “weak,” rather than “bad.” I know it’s semantics, but as parent-teachers we must be careful not to let our daughter associate our criticism of a move with herself.

I love it when this happens . . . Teacher's paradise

I volunteer chess coach for a school and we have about 30 players every week. Today, a new girl in the 6th grade came for the first time. She played another girl who's been coming to the club for a couple of years or so. The veteran player ended up getting a Knight and Bishop checkmate (with the help of the opponent's own pawn blocking the King). I congratulated both on playing a good game and praised the veteran for the rare checkmate.

They changed colors and played another game.

When I was leaving the building and was by my car, the new player ran up all smiles and said, "I got a Queen for a Bishop!" I praised her for that and she just loved being able to tell me.

Piece values

pawn - 1
Knight - 3
Bishop - 3
Rook - 5
Queen - 9
King - zero - he's NEVER captured.

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.

Chess is for kids!

Chess is a fantastic game for kids.

Here are some of the benefits of chess as written by Christine Palm in her New York City Schools Chess Program Report in 1990:

• Chess instills in young players a sense of self-confidence and self-worth;
• Chess dramatically improves a child’s ability to think rationally,
• Chess increases cognitive skills;
• Chess improves children’s communication skills and aptitude in recognizing patterns;
• Chess results in higher grades, especially in English and Math studies,
• Chess builds a sense of team spirit while emphasizing the ability of the individual;
• Chess teaches the value of hard work, concentration and commitment;
• Chess makes a child realize that he or she is responsible for his or her own actions and must accept their consequences,
• Chess teaches children to try their best to win, while accepting defeat with grace;
• Chess provides an intellectual, comparative forum through which children can assert hostility i.e. “let off steam” in an acceptable way;
• Chess can become a child’s most eagerly awaited school activity, dramatically improving attendance;
• Chess allows girls to compete with boys on a non-threatening, socially acceptable plane;
• Chess helps children make friends more easily because it provides an easy, safe forum for gathering and discussion,
• Chess allows students and teachers to view each other in a more sympathetic way,
• Chess, through competition, gives kids a palpable sign of their accomplishments, and finally;
• Chess provides children with a concrete, inexpensive and compelling way to rise above the deprivation and self-doubt which are so much a part of their lives.