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gentlesoldier

Minichess Principles

Many people believe that chess is the greatest, most beautiful, most exciting game in the world. All children should have the opportunity to learn how to play.

Strategy games, preferably played in person rather than on a screen, should play an important part in all children’s lives.

Most children are able to learn the basic moves of the pieces by the age of 5 or 6.

However, chess, by its nature, is more suitable for older children and adults than for younger children: it requires the ability to handle complex abstract reasoning as well as exceptional executive function skills.

Chess is not the only game you can play with a chess set any more than bridge is the only game you can play with a pack of cards. There are many simpler games available which are more suitable for children of primary school age.

Most young children will make little progress at chess without significant proactive parental support.

Having said that, some very bright and mature children with supportive parents can derive a lot of benefit and enjoyment from taking chess seriously and playing competitively from an early age.

Children who start competitive chess young are more likely to become grandmasters: children who start competitive chess when they’re older are more likely to continue playing as adults.

Traditional primary school chess clubs serve little purpose beyond providing low level entertainment and childminding services because they encourage parents to sign their children up without helping them at home.

For primary school chess to be successful, schools need to separate the three aspects of chess: learning chess, social chess and competitive chess.

Having said that, some primary schools are successful in promoting chess proactively, ensuring all children have the opportunity to learn chess and getting parents involved in supporting their children.

According to meta-analysis of multiple studies, there is little evidence that putting chess on the curriculum produces a unique and long-term improvement in academic performance.

The social benefits of encouraging chess for older children are, in my opinion, more important than the perceived academic benefits of encouraging chess for younger children.

Strategy games, including chess, can be exceptionally valuable for a wide range of children with special needs: for example children on the autistic spectrum, children with ADHD, children with dyspraxia.

We believe that, although chess naturally attracts more boys than girls, there’s no reason why girls can’t play as well as boys, and we’d like to see many more girls taking part in chess competitions: therefore we encourage schools and parents to introduce girls to minichess.

Our principles, therefore, are:

  1. Encourage as many children as possible to learn how the pieces move and play simple chess-based games (the MINICHESS project). We promote minichess in schools, youth groups and other organisations. We promote community minichess clubs in libraries and elsewhere.

 

  1. Support competitive chess for parents who want to fast track their children through children’s chess clubs, competitions, private tuition and coaching materials (the CHESS HEROES project)

 

  1. Encourage older children to learn chess, play social chess and participate in competitions.
gentlesoldier

Chess under Lockdown

As most of us are likely to be stuck at home for the next few months, there’s no better time for parents to teach their children chess.

My name is Richard James: I’ve been teaching chess in the Twickenham area since 1972. My views on children’s chess are rather different from those of most chess teachers, which is why I prefer to work as a freelance consultant. To be brief, I believe that, although bright children with proactive parents can benefit from starting chess young, the game is, because of its complexity, more suitable for older children and adults. Younger children will, in most cases, derive more enjoyment and benefit from learning to master simpler games first, only moving onto chess when they’re ready.

I’m the author of the Amazon best seller Chess for Kids and The Right Way to Teach Chess to Kids.

I offer three services, all of which can be tailored to individual requirements:

1. Minichess: introducing chess to younger children through a series of simple games, puzzles and activities

2. Chess Heroes: tuition and coaching materials for children who have learned the basic principles and want to compete successfully in tournaments

3. Spectrum Chess: using chess and strategy games to help children with an ASD diagnosis develop social skills

At present I can provide free coaching books and other materials, and free lessons via phone, email or online (Zoom).

If you’re interested please contact me for a preliminary consultation.

gentlesoldier

The Chess Heroes Project

If you look at any chess bookstall you’ll find a lot of books written for young beginners. I should know: I’ve written several myself. You’ll also find a lot of books written for tournament players: some aimed at lower level players, some at higher level players.

There’s very little, though, which will take you from being a novice to being a serious competitive player (about 100 ECF/1450 FIDE). There are many sources which contain useful material but nothing putting it all together.

I now produce my own coaching materials, based on nearly 50 years’ experience teaching chess and a database of nearly 17000 games played, mostly at this level, at Richmond Junior Chess Club between 1976 and 2006.

I believe that a complete course designed to take novices to serious competitive players should:

  • be written for teachers, parents and older readers, not for young children, who lack the maturity to teach themselves at this level.
  • cover all aspects of the game thoroughly: openings, middle games and endings.
  • be based on what actually happens in games played at this level, not what happens in grandmaster games, nor everything that might happen.
  • provide all the knowledge and skills required to succeed in adult or higher level junior competitions.
  • teach each aspect of the game in a logical, structured, step-by-step way.
  • develop chess thinking skills by explaining how to go about solving different types of puzzle and playing different types of position.

The course starts with four instructional books:

 

  • CHECKMATES FOR HEROES (eBook published on Amazon Autumn 2019) takes students from simple one-move checkmates through to more complex examples involving mates in 2, 3, 4 or more moves. There are more than 500 checkmate puzzles to be solved.
  • CHESS TACTICS FOR HEROES (eBook published on Amazon Autumn 2019) teaches basic tactical ideas such as trapping pieces, forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks and deflections before showing you how you can put ideas together to make combinations. Again, there are more than 500 tactics puzzles for you.
  • CHESS OPENINGS FOR HEROES (eBook scheduled for publication early 2020) starts with general opening principles, moving on to look at recurring tactical ideas in the opening such as queen forks and tactics on the e-file. We then look at several strategic ideas which are seen across different openings. Now it’s time to look at the most popular openings starting 1. e4 e5. We then move onto a general introduction to positional ideas before considering other replies to 1. e4 and other first moves for White.
  • CHESS ENDINGS FOR HEROES (eBook scheduled for publication early 2020) begins by teaching the basic KQ v K and KR v K mates. We then look at the most important KP v K positions before moving onto more complex pawn endings. Then we look in turn at queen endings, rook endings and minor piece endings. As well as puzzles there are positions to play through to enable students to develop their endgame technique.

There will then follow two books of coaching materials designed to reinforce and expand the lessons learnt in these four volumes, as well as introducing more advanced and complex ideas.

CHESS PUZZLES FOR HEROES will test and develop tactical skills.

  • Positions will include checkmates, combinations winning material, defensive questions, questions where you have to avoid making a blunder, opening questions, endgame questions, but, as in a real game, you won’t know exactly what you’re looking for.
  • There will be a mixture of multiple choice and open choice questions, to develop different methods of thinking about chess positions.
  • There will be space to write down, either using words or variations, the reasons for your choice, with extra points available for good answers.

Provisional chapter headings:

HEADS OR TAILS (which of two moves would you choose?)

ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS (which of three moves would you choose?)

TRICK OR TREAT (is this move good or bad?)

SPOT THE BLUNDER (in this position the player to move made a blunder: can you guess what it was?)

FREE CHOICE (simple ‘find the best move’ puzzles)

CHESS GAMES FOR HEROES uses the familiar ‘How Good is Your Chess’ method to test a wide range of chess skills.

  • Exercises will be either short games or short extracts from longer games, with about 12-15 questions each.
  • At various points you are asked what move you would play: points are awarded for good guesses. There will also, in some cases, be bonus (what if…) questions.
  • At the end of each game you get a rating.
  • The full scoring system is suitable for private tuition, or for more serious chess clubs where 45-60 minutes is available for lessons.
  • For shorter lessons, for instance in school chess clubs, you should ignore the scoring system: instead, hands up and a point for the first student to select the best move.

Provisional sections:

Short games selected to reinforce general opening principles and simple tactics

Games grouped by opening to reinforce the lessons learnt in CHESS OPENINGS FOR HEROES

Extracts from longer games designed to teach specific middle game themes (king side attack, minority attack, IQP positions etc)

Extracts from longer games designed to teach endings and reinforce the lessons learnt in CHESS ENDINGS FOR HEROES

In theory, any number of books in these series could be written using the same template. The first CHESS PUZZLES FOR HEROES and CHESS GAMES FOR HEROES books are expected to be available late 2020 or early 2021.

For further information on the CHESS HEROES project please contact Richard James (richard@chessheroes.uk).

gentlesoldier

The Gift of Chess

Here’s an article I wrote for my chessKIDS academy website eight years ago, in 2010.

I’d probably write it in a slightly different way today, but, for now, I’ll repeat it without comment.

————————————————————————————————————————

THE GIFT OF CHESS

Dedicated to my parents, Howard James (1919-1998) and Betty James née Smith (1921-2010)

It was fifty years ago, almost to the day as I write this, Christmas 1960. I was ten years old. Amongst the other presents on the Christmas tree was a plastic chess set, red and white pieces in a blue case.

What possessed them to think that chess would interest me I’ll never know. There was no chess background in the family. My father just about knew how the pieces moved while my mother knew nothing at all.

You see, I was a strange, silent, sad and solitary child. At home my behaviour infuriated my father and puzzled my mother, while at school I never spoke to teachers and rarely to children, mostly standing on my own in the playground, forever the target of bullies.

Today, children like this, and I’ve met and taught several, are diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, but in my day there was no such diagnosis and no understanding.

Anyway, my father soon taught me the moves, with the help of the instructions that came with the set, and we started to play. Soon I could beat him, after which he wouldn’t play me again.

That July I reached the age of 11 so it was time to move to a new school. I was fortunate enough to have won a scholarship to a school in London, and my journey every morning and afternoon involved two train rides. On the first day I took my chess set with me and, for the first time, played a game against another boy. He took all my pieces and mated me with two rooks.

Throughout my first few years there my chess set acted as a communication tool, through which I was able to relate to other children. I played on the train to and from school and still remember the thrill when, towards the end of my first year there, I beat a boy in the year above me for the first time.

At that point my parents, seeing my growing addiction to chess, decided I needed more help and bought me a chess book, which was to be the first of many. It’s on the desk beside me now as I write this.

Through that book I learnt about chess notation, openings, middle-games and endings, and about the world champions of the past. Chess was placed in context. While continuing to play at school I spent a lot of my spare time playing games against myself and writing down the moves in an exercise book, which, sadly, I didn’t keep. I also spent a lot of time in libraries, borrowing every chess book from every library within reach.

For my Christmas present in 1964 I received a year’s subscription to the British Chess Magazine. Every month I’d play through all the games, and, on the first of the month, wait eagerly for the next issue. By the end of 1965, five years after learning the moves, I could beat everyone in my form at school so my parents thought I should move on. The London Junior Chess Championships took place (as they still do) during the Christmas holidays, so I was entered for my first tournament. I did quite well in the Under 16 Reserve section, so my mother made enquiries about chess clubs in the area, and got my father to take me along to Richmond & Twickenham Chess Club, which at that time met in a dingy room above a pub. 44 years on, I’m still a member and play regularly for their teams.

In college I got involved in chess administration, and, on leaving college, I had the chance to start teaching chess to children, and, a few years later, to write about chess. But that’s another story, which I’ll tell another time.

I spent 15 years helping run chess clubs for young children in primary and prep schools. It soon became clear to me that, if I had learnt the moves at the age of 7 and been thrown straight into a semi-competitive environment, there’s no way I would have maintained an interest in the game. The only children who do well are those who receive significant help at home, and my parents would have been unable to give me that.

In these days, where everything has to be faster, louder and brighter than ever before, we are pushing children too fast too soon, in chess as well as in many other ways. If you start something slightly too late you can catch up, but if you start something slightly too early you can be put off for life.

I’ve always been painfully aware that chess not only changed but probably saved my life. Without the outlet that chess provided as a way to meet and make friends with like-minded people I would have found the world very difficult to cope with.

So that’s why I’ve devoted my life to teaching chess to young children, and why I’ve spent 10 years (so far) developing this website. Nothing other than chess would – or could – have had the same effect on me. I’m passionate about ensuring that every child has the opportunity to learn chess, but also about ensuring that every child, and every parent and teacher, has access to coaching materials and advice to enable them to get the most out of the game.

Remember, it was 8 months after learning the moves that I first played another kid, and 5 years before I first played in a tournament. Is it really best to do what we’re doing now: teaching children the moves one week and putting them in a tournament the next week?

 

gentlesoldier

Another Open Day

Continuing last week’s blog post, yesterday I went along to the second open day.

There were probably half as many children there as last week (I assume the presentation in assembly hadn’t happened this time) with a good mix of boys and girls, and of different ages. Some of the children were already members of the chess club, while a few others had been members in the past. Most could play a bit but there were a few who wanted to learn.

They’re not now going to be able to repeat the exercise next week as they’re filming for a Christmas production, but they’re planning on promoting chess once every half term in future.

It’s a step in the right direction towards splitting the three functions of primary schools chess: teaching beginners, providing facilities for social chess and providing a club for children wanting to play competitive chess.