During the past thirty years or so chess has become increasingly popular with young children, especially within primary schools. The purpose of this chapter is to help you help your children play better, enjoy chess more, and derive more benefit from the game.
Studies carried out in many countries have repeatedly shown that studying chess leads to improvement in children’s educational attainment in both Maths and English.
Chess also helps children develop:
• Concentration
• Self-discipline
• Logical thought
• Planning
• Calculation
• Eye-brain co-ordination
• Visualization
• Thinking ahead
• Considering alternatives
• Abstract thought
• Long-range planning
• Reading skills
• Self-awareness
• Responsibility for one’s own actions
• Sportsmanship
• Etiquette
• Team spirit
• Self-esteem
• Self-motivation
• Research skills
• Aesthetic judgement
• Acceptance of success and failure
. . . and much else besides.
It also provides opportunities for friendship with like-minded people (through joining clubs and playing in tournaments), an outlet for competitive urges, a heritage dating back hundreds of years and a literature unrivalled in its breadth and depth.
It is a game that is played in every country in the world, and can be enjoyed by everyone regardless of age, gender, race or religion.
Successful players have the chance to travel both nationally and internationally to take part in matches and tournaments. Chess provides tremendous intellectual stimulation as well as the opportunity to escape from the drudgery of everyday life into another world. Don’t believe anyone who tells you chess is boring. It can be played at any speed from bullet (each player has one minute to complete the game) to international correspondence chess (where games can last several years). And if you haven’t witnessed – or experienced – the excitement of a time scramble, with both players rushing to complete the game before they run out of time, you really haven’t lived. Quite simply, chess is the greatest game in the world. You owe it to your children to give them the chance to try it out for themselves.
While, in some cases, children can learn to play well at five, or even four, in most cases there is little advantage in children learning the moves before the age of six or seven. Younger children, however, can, if they are interested, learn the names of the pieces and how to set them up for the start of the game.
My observation over many years of teaching chess is that, unless they have a lot of support and help at home, most children who play chess at primary schools will enjoy chess only in the short term, and will find it difficult to make a lot of progress once they have learned the moves. The main reason for this is that to play chess well you need complex thinking skills which most children only develop at secondary school age. If you want your children to start playing competitively at an early age, and to develop a lifelong interest in the game, you should be aware that they need four attributes: i) to have a strong logical-mathematical and visual-spatial intelligence, ii) to be very mature for their age, both academically and emotionally, iii) to have extremely supportive parents (that’s you) who are prepared to give up their spare time to take their children to clubs and tournaments, and iv) to have regular access to a knowledgeable adult (if you’ve read and understood the rest of this book, this will, at least in the short term, be you as well) with excellent teaching skills and the ability to relate to them on an empathetic level. If your children don’t have all these traits (and do be honest, especially about the second), then, realistically, they will only receive short-term benefit from an early involvement in competitive chess. In principle, at any rate, they will gain more long-term benefit from starting competitive chess later.
However, there are two problems with this. Firstly, it’s increasingly hard to motivate children of secondary school age to take up chess. This is partly because chess is so popular amongst younger children that the game is not considered “cool” by teenagers, and partly because there are so many alternative and more readily understood games to choose from. Secondly, the demands of the current education system mean that many secondary school age pupils have little time or energy to pursue demanding hobbies such as chess.
Another problem with starting young is that children will often get stuck at a certain point, failing to make progress, sometimes for a year or more. The reason for this is probably that they need to make a breakthrough in cognitive or study skills before moving up to the next level of chess comprehension. Naturally, but unfortunately, this can lead children, not to mention parents and teachers, to frustration which can result in their giving up the game. But, if they can work through this frustration they will often find that, once the necessary skills have been acquired, they make a sudden dramatic improvement.
Nevertheless, if your children’s school has a chess club you should certainly use this as an opportunity to introduce them to chess. But please don’t look on this as an excuse not to have to teach your children chess yourself, but rather as an opportunity for both of you to explore the wonderful world of chess together. School chess clubs, on their own, tend to put children off chess, but, with your help, your children will be able to excel at chess, and, beyond the extrinsic educational and social benefits, develop a life-long interest in the world’s greatest game.
Chess at all levels is predominately male, even in most primary school chess clubs. Several reasons have been put forward for this. It is certainly true that many strong chess players also excel at mathematics, a subject in which males, on average, perform slightly better than females, and it seems that chess is more suited to what some would call a “typical male brain”. However, this is a subject of much controversy and I would direct readers to the relevant literature. Chess is also, by its very nature, competitive, and this too might explain why the game tends to appeal to boys rather than to girls. There are other factors as well: girls in a school chess club will usually find themselves part of a very small minority, and will sometimes give up the game because of this.
Girls will often see chess as a way to socialize with friends, so getting a group of girls together who are all interested will help. There are also tournaments run specifically for girls which are popular and successful, and are a good way of bringing girls into competitive chess.
Although the vast majority of chess players are male, and there is some evidence that chess may be more suited to males than females, partly for cognitive reasons and partly because males tend on average to be more aggressive and competitive, there is no reason why girls cannot become excellent chess players. In families where chess is played regularly, girls will often outperform their brothers.
One good example of a very successful girl chess player was Elaine Saunders, who, in 1939, became British Women’s Champion at the age of 13, and later married David Pritchard, the original author of this book. Their daughter also became a strong player.
Some readers will no doubt be familiar with the story of the Polgar sisters, three home-schooled Hungarian girls who set the chess world alight in the late 1980s. Judith, the youngest, reached the world’s top ten, while Susan, the oldest became Women’s World Champion.
So it is quite possible for girls, as well as boys, to excel at chess. It helps girls if they can see chess as something everyone plays together at home, if they are part of a group of friends who can play together, and if they can take part in competitions with other girls.
One of the biggest frustrations for me as a chess teacher is children who have been taught incorrect strategy by their parents, and, when I try to put them right, argue that it’s not what they have been taught at home, believing their parents rather than me.
Before you do anything else, read the rest of this book, if you haven’t done so already, and learn how to put everything into practice yourself.
Some points to bear in mind:
1. Don’t forget that the board must be set up with a white square in the right hand corner (“white on the right”).
2. Make sure you use the correct names for the pieces: rooks not castles, and certainly not horses and prawns.
3. The hardest rule for children to learn is the en passant rule. It doesn’t come up very often, but, when it does, it can make a very big difference to the result of the game. If you’re not certain about this rule, go back to page 18 and check it out again.
4. Make sure you can differentiate between check, checkmate and stalemate, and that you are aware that stalemate is one specific type of draw, not another word for “draw”.
5. Some popular misconceptions: a) you can’t castle if you’ve been in check – NOT TRUE, but you can’t castle if you’ve moved your king; b) when a pawn reaches the end it turns into a queen – NOT TRUE: you will usually choose a queen, but you could also choose a rook, bishop or knight; c) you cannot promote to a queen if you still have your original queen on the board – NOT TRUE: you can, in theory, have nine queens on the board! d) if you move your king where it can be taken, the game is a draw – NOTTRUE: if you do this you have to play a different move (with your king, if you can, if you’re playing “touch and move”).
6. Make sure you know about Scholar’s Mate (page 58), which is very popular in primary school chess: what it is, how to play it, how to prevent it, along with an understanding that it’s not going to work against an experienced player.
7. David Pritchard writes (on page 116) that, until you are sure of yourself, 1. e4 is the best opening move. I would add that, again until you are sure of yourself, 1. ...e5 is the best reply. Start off by learning the main openings starting 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6: the Ruy Lopez, Giuoco Piano, Two Knights’ Defence, Scotch Game and Four Knights’ Game.
One of the beauties of chess is its perfect balance between strategy and tactics, and of course the two are closely interrelated. If you display superior strategy by putting your pieces on better squares, tactical opportunities will arise automatically from the position. But at lower levels of chess, for example in primary school chess clubs, tactics predominate. Whereas experienced players will be able to play complete games without losing material, games between young beginners are decided by the amount of material lost through oversights.
To be successful at this level, children need to do three things – and you will have to learn to do these as well.
1. Every move, look round the board and see if you can play a move which wins material (remember: pawn = 1 point, knight/bishop = 3 points, rook = 5 points, queen = 9 points). If you can do this safely, then, other things being equal, you should do so.
2. Every move, look to see if your opponent is threatening to play a move which wins material. In particular, look at the piece he last moved, but remember that threats can come about in other ways, for instance discovered attacks. If you see a threat, you have to meet it, for example by moving the threatened piece, defending it if your target is not worth more than the attacking piece, blocking the attack or capturing the attacker.
3. When you’ve thought of a move, stop and make sure that the move you are considering does not lose material. Can my opponent take this piece if I move it there? Am I moving away a defending piece and allowing my opponent to take another piece, or even mate me? For children, at least, this is much harder than the first two.
Some children, although they have no problems remembering the values of the pieces, are unable to put the concept into practice. They can tell you that a rook is worth five points and a knight is worth three points, but, when given the option of trading a knight for a rook, they refuse to do so because they don’t want to lose their knight. In that case, ask them if they would swap £3 for £5, or three chocolates for five chocolates and they will soon understand. You can reinforce the values of the pieces by asking how much the piece they’ve just moved is worth. Children often enjoy adding up the values of the captured pieces to see who’s ahead, which also helps develop their maths skills. You can also ask them, for instance, how much profit they’d make if they traded, for instance, a rook for a queen.
I teach my pupils to use a CCTV to look at the board. If you look for Checks, Captures and Threats, it will lead to Victory. This should be done every move of every game, looking at the board both from your point of view and from your opponent’s point of view.
I have, sadly, come across children who have been put off chess by insensitive parents who play every game to win, never giving their children a chance. But, at the same time, playing badly and letting your children win every time can also be damaging. Knowing how to play against your children, and how to teach them most effectively, is vital if you want to maximize the benefits your children gain from chess.
The best personal tutors (and this is a very different skill from classroom teaching) are those who listen to their pupils, who give them the space and confidence to say what’s on their mind, to describe what they are thinking about, and to express concern if there’s something they don’t understand. Use open-ended questions such as, “What moves are you considering?”, “Why do you think I played that move?” and “What do you think will happen if you play that move?” to elicit replies which will help you learn how your children are thinking and move their thoughts in the right direction.
Many younger children have problems understanding abstract concepts such as check and checkmate so it’s best to start with games with individual pieces.
Start with the pawns: a simple game is one in which the winner is the first to get a pawn to the other side of the board. In the rules I use, if you run out of pawns, or if you have no possible moves, you lose. You could start with just one pawn each. Who wins? Does it make any difference whether the pawns start on the same file, adjacent files or further apart? Then add more pawns: do two pawns always win against one? And, when you’re playing these games, can you remember and use the en passant rule? This way, young children gain an understanding of the importance of having a material advantage as well as becoming fluent in moving pawns and learning skills which will come in useful much later when more complicated king and pawn endings are being studied.
Then, you can add pieces and try again. Knights and bishops are worth three points each so try out different positions in which three pawns battle against a minor piece. Is it better if the pawns are together or separated?
Once your children are old enough to understand check and checkmate you can start playing complete games. A good way of playing against young children is to give odds. Your child starts with a full complement of pieces while you have just your king and pawns, or even just your king. Explain that his/her most powerful piece is the queen, and that, as long as you’re careful where you put her, using the queen in conjunction with other pieces will lead to a speedy victory. Look in particular at diagram 7 on page 23, with the white queen next to the black king. This will be how your children will most often get checkmate in these games, but there will be another piece, usually a knight or bishop, rather than the king supporting the white queen.
When your children have mastered winning at this level, add another piece such as a knight to your side and play again. Continue with this process, playing at each level until your child is confident of winning, until you find a level at which you’ll have an even game.
When you play these games talk through them as you play. If you like, you can explain your moves as you go along: “I’ll bring my knight out – it’s good to get knights out early in the game”, or “I’m threatening your queen – which piece do you think you should move next?” Ask questions to elicit information as to how your children decide on their moves. This sort of verbalization is a useful skill anyway, and one which many children find difficult to acquire.
Some children would rather play on equal terms straight away rather than letting you give them a start. Again there are several teaching techniques you can use to help them here. Again, you can talk through the games with them as explained above. When you reach an overwhelming position, turn the board round and see if they can win from the other side. Alternatively, give them the chance to turn the board round a certain number of times during the game. Make the occasional deliberate mistake to see if your children notice: if you like you can say something like “Oh no! I’ve made a mistake!” to provide a clue. Another technique is to choose inferior strategy deliberately, such as moving your queen too often, bringing your rooks out at the start of the game or moving your king up the board to see if they can take advantage.
Many primary schools have chess clubs which meet either at lunchtime or after school. In most cases these clubs are run by a teacher but, in some parts of the country, clubs may also be run by professional chess teachers. These clubs are generally run on the assumption that members already know how to play chess, and may take the form of a tournament or ladder, with some instruction built in. If your children’s school runs a club, teach them the moves at home first and make sure they know all the moves and, preferably, understand basic concepts such as check, checkmate and stalemate, and the values of the pieces before joining the club. The majority of school clubs encourage membership from Year 3 onwards, so the summer holidays before they move into Year 3 would be a good time to start fairly serious work on chess.
If your children’s school does not have a chess club, you could encourage them to start one up. Perhaps you could even help run it yourself. Your school may well say that they have no one on the staff who plays chess. But with the advent of modern technology this need not be a barrier. My website chessKIDS academy (www.chesskids.com) offers free interactive chess lessons which can be broadcast to the school chess club via an interactive whiteboard, along with a download pack including the stationery you need to run internal tournaments.
In some areas there are also open junior chess clubs, which usually run at a slightly higher level than school clubs. If your children are doing well at school or at home it is well worth considering joining a club of this nature should you have one in your area. Information on this, as well as details of forthcoming tournaments and chess organizers and teachers in your area can be found on the English Chess Federation website (www.englishchess.org.uk).
If your children do well at school, they may have the chance to play in a tournament. Many schools run local heats of the UK Chess Challenge, in which the top boys and girls in each age group in each participating school qualify for county, and then national championships. Most areas also run local primary school chess tournaments which your children may be able to enter. Children would be well advised to be familiar with the procedures and etiquette of these events before taking part.
Tournaments of this nature are run by a team of arbiters whose job is to ensure that the laws of chess are strictly adhered to. Games will be played in silence throughout, apart from words related to the conduct of the game such as “check” and “do you want a draw?” Contravention of this rule will result in a warning, and, if repeated, a penalty. At higher levels, clocks will be used, but at lower levels this may not be the case. Check first and, if you’ve never played with a clock before, get some practice in before the tournament. Pairings are usually displayed on a large board with slots for cards with your name on, or, if computer pairings are being used, displayed on the wall. Tournaments are usually run on the Swiss system. In each round you will be paired, as far as possible, with an opponent on the same score as yourself, and, again as far as possible, you will alternate white and black.
All tournaments of this nature are strictly “touch and move”. If you touch a piece with the intention of moving it you have to do so, and if you touch an opponent’s piece with the intention of taking it, either with your hand or with one of your pieces, again you have to do so. However, there is no penalty for accidentally knocking a piece while reaching for another one. Try to avoid using the “j’adoube” rule (page 207) if at all possible to avoid misunderstandings: ensure that all your pieces are placed in the middle of their squares before the start of the game and that whenever you make a move you place the piece in the middle of the square. You CANNOT use the “j’adoube” rule to change your mind once you’ve touched a piece (although some children try to do this).
Draw offers are another regular source of disputes in junior tournaments. Strictly speaking, the only time you should offer a draw is between making your move and pressing your clock. Etiquette demands that you offer a draw because you think the position is level, NOT because you’re losing and hope your opponent is foolish enough to accept. Not everyone understands this, though. Beware of opponents who, when losing, smile sweetly and offer you their hand, muttering something about a draw. If you accept their hand you’ve agreed to the draw and, sadly, there’s nothing you can do about it. And DON’T try it yourself: it is totally unethical.
On the subject of draws, there is much ignorance at this level about the 50-move rule (page 26). Many children, and also many chess teachers, have three misapprehensions about this rule. Firstly, that it only applies if one player only has a king left: not true, although that’s when it’s most likely to come into play. If both players spend their first 50 moves shuffling their knights around, then a draw can be claimed. Secondly, there is no understanding that it is 50 moves without a pawn move or capture: therefore if the player with superior force is pushing a pawn up the board, you start counting again every time the pawn moves. Thirdly, many people think that it’s 25 moves each, not 50 moves each. (There is some confusion about the use of the word “move” in chess. In this context a move comprises a turn by each player, not by just one player.)
You should be aware that, if you have a problem or something happens that you don’t understand, you must stop the game, stop the clock (if you are using one) and call an arbiter, either by raising your hand or going to the control desk. If you go up to the arbiter after the game has been completed and say that you think your opponent was cheating, it’s too late: there’s no way anyone can do anything about it.
In most events of this nature, recording your moves is optional, but scoresheets are provided for those who wish to use them. If you’re happy to do so, it’s well worth doing. For a start, there are practical advantages. You have to record your moves in order to claim a draw under the 50 move rule or by threefold repetition, and you can also use it to prove, for instance, that your opponent’s queen really was on the square on which you captured it, not, as claimed by your opponent, on an adjacent square. (Yes, I’ve seen children try this on many occasions.) But perhaps the most important reason for recording your moves is that you can go through your games afterwards, see where you went wrong and learn from your mistakes.
In many events, parents are not allowed in the playing area, and, in my opinion, quite rightly so. You’re under pressure when you’re playing anyway, and there’s nothing worse than having someone hovering over your board watching your moves and waiting to criticize you after the game. Children who have won a game will probably want to tell you all about it. Different children will react to defeat in different ways. Some will want to tell you about the game anyway, but others will want to be consoled, or just left alone. I know from personal experience it’s very difficult, but, even if you’ve just seen your child throw away a completely won game, try not to be overcritical. Most of us try our best when we play chess, and, because we’re only human and because chess is a very difficult game, we often make mistakes. We already know when we’ve done something stupid and the last thing we need is someone bigger and louder shouting at us.
Chess etiquette demands that you shake hands with your opponent at the start of the game. It’s a good idea to introduce yourself and wish your opponent good luck before the game begins. After the game you should again shake hands, set the pieces up for the next game, if you’re using a clock and know how to do so, reset it, and report the result. The procedure for reporting results varies. In some events you will need to go up to the arbiter and report the result, while in other events you will have to fill in a result slip with the names of the players and the result of the game. It is the responsibility of the winner to report the result: the loser could falsify this, and, yes, this is something I’ve seen happen from time to time. Again, it’s a good idea to say something like, “Well played!” to your opponent if you lost, or, “Good game” if you won. Of course children (and indeed all participants in chess competitions) should learn to accept both victory and defeat with good grace, not gloating if they win nor showing too much emotion if they lose.
There is an increasing demand for private tuition for young chess players. Is this something you should consider for your children? Chess tutors may range from local enthusiasts who would charge what you would expect from a private tutor in an academic subject through to International Masters and Grandmasters who might charge many times that, but would be mostly interested in teaching at a high level to highly motivated pupils. I wouldn’t recommend a private tutor for beginners: in the early stages you will be your child’s best teacher and the material elsewhere in this book will give you enough knowledge of the game to do this. Do be aware, also, that chess isn’t for everyone and not even the best teacher in the world will make a reluctant child interested. Again, please don’t use a tutor just because you don’t have time yourself. But if your child is ambitious and wants to compete at a high level, a private tutor may well be worth considering.
Do be prepared to work closely with the tutor, helping him or her to get to know your child and providing the appropriate support and encouragement. Make sure you know exactly what you want out of the chess lessons. Are you expecting mainly extrinsic benefits such as improvement in cognitive skills, or are you expecting an increase in playing strength and success in competition? First of all, the tutor and the pupil should get on well and enjoy spending time together. Secondly, don’t be put off by an apparent lack of progress. As mentioned above, it’s very common for children who start young to reach a plateau. This is quite natural, so don’t blame the tutor if this happens. Thirdly, it’s better to look at long-term chess development rather than the short-termism of hiring a tutor for a few weeks to prepare your children for an important tournament.
There are now many ways in which children can practise and study chess using computers and the Internet, although younger children should, of course, be restricted in their amount of screen time.
With regard to software for children, I would recommend the Fritz and Chesster series for instruction for younger beginners. You could then move onto this software’s big brother, Fritz or similar programs which, these days, play to a very high level. More suitable for children wanting a chess playing program, though, is the Chessmaster series, in which users can challenge a wide variety of virtual opponents from very weak up to Grandmaster standard. There are, however, two caveats: firstly the weaker virtual opponents play very unrealistically, and, secondly, many users have reported technical problems: this is something you should check out before you buy.
There are many sites which teach chess interactively. My own site, chessKIDS academy (www.chesskids.com) includes a fully structured course, taking children from learning the moves to adult club standard, along with quizzes, games and puzzles, five computer chess opponents of varying standards, free chess books to download and print, a schools download pack to enable any school to run a successful chess club and much advice for parents and teachers.
Finally, there are many sites on which you can play human opponents, either in real time or by email. The best site for younger children to play in real time is Yahoo Kids Chess (http://kids.yahoo.com/games/game/chess) which, with no chat facilities and no registration, is totally safe for children. For stronger players, there are sites such as the Internet Chess Club (www.chessclub.com) where playing chess is just one of many services provided for members. If you prefer to play chess by email, one of the best sites is Let’s Play Chess (www.letsplaychess.com).
Chess is undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest games, and everyone should have the opportunity to learn how to play. For most of you reading this book, chess will simply be something you play at home or with your friends, and it’s none the worse for that. But beyond this there is a wonderful world of beauty and excitement, of literature, heritage and history, of friendship and competition.
Children can gain many benefits from chess. Educational benefits are often mentioned, but I would personally rate the social benefits more highly. Having said that, chess is a fiendishly difficult game to play well, and, to be perfectly honest, it’s not for everyone. Because of this, it’s not always easy to find the right way to approach chess for your children. If you get it right, though, they will have, at the very least, a wonderful and lifelong interest. I hope this chapter will go some way towards pointing you in the right direction.