Magnetic Sumo Kings

Continuing the theme of teaching the basics of chess one piece at a time, I present you with my handout on "Magnetic Sumo Kings," which makes a game out of lone Kings in order to teach "the opposition." It's practically the chess equivalent of tic-tac-toe.

The Kings are set up opposite each other and the first to force his way across to the other side of the board wins (unless they reach a position where neither can make progress, in which case it's a draw). The idea of imagining the Kings as "magnetic" (of the same polarization) struck me as a good metaphor to help explain how they can influence each other even though they must remain one square apart. A puzzle position from Capablanca then helps show how the principle of the opposition can be used to win games.

The main idea of "Magnetic Sumo Kings," as with "Pawn Battle," is to create an active learning environment where kids pick up complex theoretical concepts by engaging with them directly in practice. Active learning has its limitations, but it does keep kids involved and having fun, especially in group lessons. Have you ever tried to lecture to a group of 8-year-olds? Good luck.

Another good game to get kids to try is "The Szen Position," which is especially effective for brining home the idea of "zugzwang"--though it's unlikely you will get kids to cement the lessons from their practice by playing over the detailed analysis of the position by Jon Speelman in EG 73.5 (July 1983): 185-190. My group of a dozen 8-year-olds seemed to enjoy playing with the Szen position last week. Will they really gain much from the experience without some study? Tough to say. But at least I have made a start and sparked their curiosity and engagement.

It would be nice if the kids I teach would use what they have learned so far to go study the ending some more on their own. But it takes a rare child (or especially committed parents) to do that. That's too bad, since there are so many excellent online resources for learning the endgame these days, especially in the ChessCafe Archives. I especially enjoyed the following articles, which reinforce the themes of "the opposition" and "zugzwang" I have emphasized so far:

• http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles312.pdf
• http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles197.pdf
• http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles199.pdf
• http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles291.pdf
  

Will any of the kids I teach read this stuff? Maybe in a few years....

Pawn Battle Rules and Strategies

I have posted “Pawn Battle Rules and Strategies” on the web for chess teachers to use in their classes. I developed it for the dozen 8-year-olds I am currently teaching once a week after school. I found it very effective for covering complex terms, strategies, and ideas in chess all within the first two sessions – and this in a group where over half of the kids had never even learned the rules prior to taking the class. I especially liked that by the end of the first session they already knew some fancy foreign words to impress their parents with...

I am trying something a little different this year with the kids, since many didn’t even know the rules and all but three never had any formal instruction. Generally I start all my teaching to groups by getting the kids to play simplified games such as “Pawn Battle” and “Sumo Kings.” But this year, I’m trying to stick to a strict program where I introduce only a piece at a time and get them engaged with an activity with that piece (or in combination with any others we have discussed).

Pawn Battle

Usually, because the kids already know how the pieces move and are anxious to get to play with the full set (as they are used to doing), I generally have to give up on the strict progression method and just jump into full-blown play. One of the inevitable problems with full-blown play, though, is that the kids start to teach each other the game, so a lot can go wrong. If one kid doesn’t understand that there are three ways to get out of check (you don’t always have to move the King, of course!) then he can start spreading that mistaken idea to the rest of them as fast as a stomach flu. And if the kids have only a tenuous grasp of how en passant capturing works, they’ll be using their pawns to capture Knights, Bishops, and Rooks en passant and exercising that right in every mistaken situation conceivable. Besides getting the rules all muddled, they also start to learn bad strategy, like the inevitable plan of getting their Rooks out first or, for the somewhat more sophisticated, going for the three move mate every time. I’d prefer to have the chance to teach them some good ideas before letting them loose on each other.

So far the approach is working well. Whereas last year, I struggled to the bitter end to teach some less attentive 10-year-olds the meaning of “stalemate” and “en passant,” this year’s younger group already have mastered those ideas completely and even understand things my previous kids never got, such as “zugzwang,” “a pawn majority,” and “the passed pawn’s lust to expand” (OK, maybe I didn’t put the last one quite that way with them). And when one of the kids pulled off a masterful stalemate combination in Pawn Battle, I knew I was already making more rapid progress than I’ve ever seen before.

The handout helped a lot, and eventually I hope to have several like it, including one on “Kings and the Opposition” featuring “Sumo Kings,” “Queening a Pawn,” “The Szen Position,” and “King and Pawn Battle.” I’ve even decided to get them learning Rook endings by lesson four. I’ll tell you how that works out. But if I succeed, none of them will have my own nagging doubts about playing an endgame if they go on to take chess more seriously. As a friend once told me, winning an endgame is at least 50% attitude. If you believe you are a great endgame player, your chances of actually winning in the endgame go up tremendously, no matter what your actual skill level. I hope I can instill such confidence in these kids. And I think we are off to a great start.

Patterns of Error

White to play and win.

Black to play and win.

I have recently been coaching a young player, which I am learning is a little different from teaching chess to kids. For one thing, you can go much deeper into opening lines, middlegame themes, and endgame problems with an interested individual than you can with a mixed group of antsy boys. You also get to tailor your lessons to the specific needs of your student, which you can identify by analyzing his games.

Coaching a young chessplayer reminds me of tutoring writing (at which I have much more experience), and some similar issues arise, especially as regards "patterns of error."

When tutoring writing, we speak of "patterns of error," or the specific mistakes in grammar, syntax, spelling, etc. that a student makes in his or her essays. Identifying and working on just a few patterns of error at a time keeps students from getting overwhelmed and helps them learn to edit their own work. Too often, writing professors (especially those with a background in editing) will mark every error they see on an assignment, leaving students feeling overwhelmed by the task of making corrections. The tutor can perform a valuable act of triage by classifying errors, prioritizing them (from "fatal errors," such as subject-verb agreement, to trivial ones, such as occasional dropped articles in the prose of a non-native speaker), and then showing the student how to correct the most important ones. You can also sometimes help in getting to the root of the problem.

For example, I've seen students who present with problems in subject-verb agreement ("Gould say [sic] that evolution is a misuse [sic] term"), errors in number ("Wooly mammoth [sic] are extinct"), and errors in tense ("They use [sic] to think fossils were evidence that dragons once existed"). The student could work on those errors with the help of a grammar text, where he'd find them listed under subject-verb agreement, constructing plurals, and using the past tense. But a good tutor might notice that the larger pattern of error really boils down to issues with sub-vocalizing -s and -ed endings. Therefore, the best way to address these errors is for the student to pay attention to the words where he is not hearing the endings. He should collect a list of these words and memorize them. If the student still cannot hear the proper endings, at least he will see the problem words and learn to make the correction.

It seems to me that patterns of error in chess are quite parallel to those we see in writing. My chess student, for example, has been making some critical errors that involve not recognizing his opponent's threats. Of course, this is a fairly common error type in developing players (some might say in all players). But then I noticed a deeper pattern emerge: almost all of his errors involved threats on dark-square diagonals. It's almost as though he's especially blind to attacks by a dark-squared Bishop, as the following two diagrams (both from his recent games) illustrate.

White has just played 14.f4? to win the Bishop

at d3, which allows Black to win by force.

Black overlooked White's
threat and played 16...dxe4?

Fortunately his opponents must suffer from the same color-blindness, because they both overlooked the threats as well! He can't rely on such lucky breaks in the future, especially as he begins to play stronger opposition. In the first example, 14...Neg4! would have been absolutely crushing, due to the deadly threat of ...Bc5+. And in the second example, White should simply win the Exchange with 17.Ba5!

After I noticed this dark square problem, I remembered other examples from his play. The first game we ever played together, for instance, went 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.f4 Bb4!? 4.fxe4?? Bxc3 5.dxc3 Qh4+ etc. And the other day we were discussing the Queen's Gambit and he asked me why after 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Nbd7 5.cxd5 exd5 White did not simply play 6.Nxd5?? I was surprised he would make these errors since I'd rate him around 1600, yet any 1600 player would see that these are absolute blunders. Clearly it is a pattern of error and I think it is one he can train himself to control.

Classifying his error is an important first step. Next we will have to work through some problems with dark-square attacks or dark-square threats so that he begins to train his recognition of those patterns. We could begin with threats on the dark square diagonals around the King (perhaps looking at 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nd2?! e5!? 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.h3?? Ne3! as in the supposed shortest master game or 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bg5 c5 3. c4 cxd4 4. Nf3 e5 5. Nbd2 Nc6 6. Ne4?? Nxe4! as in a nice miniature by Scott Massey). Then we will work on other situations with dark-square attacks.

Once you notice a single pattern of error, others begin to emerge. One interesting pattern of error can be seen in the first two diagrams at the beginning of this article. In both these games, from the same tournament, my student accepted a draw against opponents rated over 1600. In fact, in the second diagram his opponent offered him a draw in the diagram position itself and, without thinking (despite plenty of time on his clock), my student took it. Yet in both positions, as you have already likely observed, he could have won by exploiting a pin. In the first position he should double Rooks on the b-file with 1.Rb2! followed by Reb1, winning the Knight at b5 which is pinned to the Rook at b8. In the second diagram he could win a piece by 1....Re1! followed by 2...Ne3, and if 2.Nc4 Ne3! still wins the Bishop after 3.Nxe3? dxe3 with the deadly threat of 4....e2 etc. In both cases, he simply did not recognize the possibilities of the Rook pin, so he ended up with just two draws out of two games instead of the two wins that he deserved. The parallels between these two cases are uncanny, yet rather typical of patterns of error.

We cannot recognize what we have never seen before, and we will never recognize it until we've consciously trained ourselves to see it in the first place.

You can track patterns of error on your own by putting together a database of your games and using Fritz or another strong program to blunder check. Then use the computer to create diagrams of situations where you've made mistakes (you can simply use Edit>"Copy Position" and paste into Microsoft Word--if you have the right chess fonts installed). Once you've collected enough diagrams, look for patterns of error. Inevitably something will begin to emerge. Of course, a chess coach can be especially helpful in designing a training plan to address that error in your play. But just becoming aware of the pattern or patterns is a good first step.

There have not been many books that can help students train themselves to recognize their patterns of error and correct them. Among the best of those few is Dan Heisman's Looking for Trouble: Recognizing and Meeting Threats in Chess. You can read an excerpt of the book at his "Novice Nook" column at ChessCafe. I am a big fan of Heisman's work and especially liked his piece on "Quiescence Errors," which discusses cases where players end their analysis too soon, usually stopping on some stereotyped move ("Oh, if he does that he loses his Queen, so that can't be good...") rather than looking a little further to recognize that they've really blundered ("...but wait! I win his Queen but I also get mated! Yikes!") That may be one of my own patterns of error, though I tend to make it in a more positive way, where I might not explore a line sufficiently because it involves an initial sacrifice yet, if examined far enough, could lead to a winning attack.

Heisman has written a lot on the issue of error for beginning chess players. The better pieces among his "Novice Nook" columns on the topic include "The Seeds of Tactical Destruction," "A Counting Primer," "Revisiting the Seeds of Tactical Destruction," "The Most Common OTB Mistakes," "Is there a Win?" and "Is It Safe?"

Another interesting book on the theme of error is Amatzia Avni's Danger in Chess: How to Avoid Making Blunders. I'm not sure it will be as helpful to the average player as Heisman's work, but I enjoyed looking at its examples. Avni's book may also come the closest I've seen to offering what I'd call a "Grammar of Chess Mistakes," which can be a helpful thing to have for categorizing your errors. Avni's categories include "leaving the king with insufficient support," "weakness of the eighth rank," "entering a lasting pin," "capturing poisoned pawns," and "placing pieces without escape routes." Most of his examples (all drawn from GM games) are more psychological than tactical, however, and amount to three problem areas: (1) underestimating your opponent, (2) underestimating the situation, and (3) ignoring your opponent's body language (as when he appears a bit too happy to enter a line you thought was bad for him). He then goes on to talk about ways players can manipulate these psychological effects to their advantage to misguide their opponents. I am not sure how useful this is to developing players, but his examples concerning "The Art of Deception" are the most interesting in the book. It might be an interesting project to collect games where the psychological element can be seen in the moves themselves. My favorite example of that is Kupchik - Capablanca, Lake Hopatcong 1926, where Capa appears to weaken his kingside in order to lure Kupchik into an attack on that flank, which only serves to make his own attack on the queenside all the more effective. A similar case might be Geller-Euwe, Zurich 1953.

Though most of his examples seem rather esoteric, Avni does offer some useful ideas for students and coaches. Basically, if you want to avoid error, you need to train yourself to do the following:

• Begin your thought process by looking for your opponent's threats rather than focusing on your own attacking ideas.
  
• Maintain a self-critical attitude and always double-check your calculations.
  
• Check actively for possible dangers and try to "think for the other guy" so that you begin to anticipate his ideas.

I especially like his suggestion that students study double-edged games so that they are always studying tactics with their opponent's threats in mind.

One of Avni's better examples comes from the game Kagan-Kaldor, Israel 1971, which illustrates his three principles quite well:

Kagan - Kaldor, Israel 1971

Black to play (the board is from his perspective).

What dangers lurk?

Black to play (the board is presented from his perspective) continued 40...Re2+? 41.Kxe2 a7 and the pawn cannot be stopped. No doubt Kaldor thought he was winning. But Kagan was able to force a draw by 42.Rh6+ Ke5 43.Rh5+ and Black dare not play 43...Kd4?? because of 44.Kd2 followed by Rd5#. One might also note that Black cannot escape in the other direction: after 42.Rh6+ both 42...Kf7 and 42...Kd7 allow 43.Rh7+ followed by 44.Ra7 which stops the passed pawn and wins.

Kaldor did not double-check his calculations, and he did not see what his opponent might be able to do. All he saw was the most forcing way to get the pawn to the queening square.

Controlling most patterns of error comes down to double-checking your calculations from your opponent's point of view. This lesson was brought home to me recently as I was looking at the game Tarrasch-Mieses, Goteborg 1920 in Irving Chernev's Logical Chess, Move by Move.

White to play and not blunder....

The diagram above appears on page 202 of the book, and I remember thinking immediately on seeing it that 25.b5 wins. Then I looked at Chernev's note: if 25.b5? Na5+ 26.Kb4? Nd5+ 27.Kxa5?? Ra8#! I could easily have walked into that trap, since the moves leading up to mate seem so natural from White's perspective. Once you start to think from the other side of the board, though, the mating trap becomes obvious. Fortunately, Tarrasch was aware of the danger and checked his calculations, going on to produce one of the most error-free games of his career.

It takes training to weed out our errors. But if you develop the right habits of thought, you will keep errors under control and increase your winning percentage significantly. I look forward to seeing my student do just that.

Teaching Chess to Kids, Part VII

Black to play. Mate in one.

Teachers often ask themselves whether or not their students are actually learning. "Yes, I've been teaching them and we have covered what is important. But are they any better?" Sometimes it's tough to know for sure, especially when they are still making mistakes.

At a recent lesson, I played a simultaneous exhibition against my chess students, spotting Queen and move. We only had space, time, and materials for five boards, so most of them had to pair up. Two were absent, so that meant that the two better players could face me solo. The others played in teams of two.

I told them that a prize was at stake--that anyone who could beat me would get something big. I have candy and book prizes always handy, and we have medals and trophies prepared for the final tournament. But, frankly, if anyone had beaten me, I think I would have gotten him something REALLY big, like a video game or an entire video game system.

With my Queen off the board and some mystery prize in the offing, they were really into it and tried their confident best to beat me. Even as they started dropping pieces, they did not quit. One student even caught me off-guard with a check I had not noticed.

In the end, however, it was a shocking slaughter. I routed them in under 30 minutes. I must admit, I played with a mixture of disappointment and glee. One of my better games ended in a nice mate (see diagram above). On the other boards, I simply collected pieces until my advantage was overwhelming. One game began 1.e4 c5 2.Qh5?! (a GM move -- if your name is Nakamura!) 2...e6 ("You saw what we were planning, didn't you!" one declared) 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3?? Nxh5 etc.

At the end of fifteen minutes or so, as the tide turned and one team dropped their Queen with a groan of agony, a player called out, "Man, we are losing bad! How are you guys doing?" They universally acknowledged that all seemed lost. "He got our Queen a while ago!"

Fortunately, they all kept score, so I had some of their games to discuss the following session, to emphasize the importance of development, watching for threats, trading when ahead, and getting the king to safety through castling. I emphasized that when they were ahead in material, they not only should exchange but they should be more willing to play aggressively. "Make threats, don't get into a defensive posture. You have the Queen on your side, I don't," I said, "use her like a bully or a bodyguard to push me around! But most importantly, get your king to safety...."

As they arrived at our following lesson, I gave them a review of castling, setting up a "puzzle" on each board where the question was, "How many legal ways are there for each player to castle on his next move--and what are they?"

How many legal ways are there to castle?

I then showed them my better win where castling early might have made a difference for White.

At another lesson, I began by setting up some opening positions where one player disregards his King safety along the short diagonal, as follows:

A) 1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.e3 gxh4??

B) 1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nc3??

C) 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nd2?! e5!? 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.h3??

D) 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5 3.fxe5?

E) 1.e4 e5 2.f4 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5 4.Nxe5?

Once they solved the problem position, I went over some of the moves to show them the basic patterns leading to mate or the win of material. I then showed them a game that two of them had recorded beginning 1.e4 e5 2.d4!? f6? 3.dxe5 fxe5? 4.f4? exf4? 5.Nc3? Qh4+ and White quickly got into some trouble. Obviously they needed a lesson on the short diagonal motif!

The simul was useful, and not simply for gathering sample games and gaining their respect. I also was able to correct any persistent errors, especially involving the more difficult rules. For instance, there is one kid who wants to capture en passant whenever anything passes one of his pawns, including a piece!

More importantly, the simul gave me my best chance yet to rank them by playing strength.

I always end each lesson period with a final tournament, which is a 4-round Swiss with each round lasting 16 minutes. As we gear up for that event, I have to begin ranking the players so that the swiss pairings will work most effectively to determine a champion. Last year, but for one surprising player who came in second, I had them pretty much as they finished. This year, but for the top three players who are real standouts, I was not certain. So the session after the simul, I also started pairing them off to help me make the more difficult distinctions between the ones who are relatively even in skill level. As of this writing, I have practically decided the first round pairings for the tournament.

One reassuring thing is that there are clearly some kids who are beginning to excel at the game beyond their peers. That suggests to me that some of them are learning something, even if not all of them are as devoted to the game. In the end, I guess that's all I can hope to achieve.

Teaching Chess to Kids, Part VI

I have discovered the most important item in the chess teacher's toolbox: the lollipop.

Specifically, I recommend "ring pops," since they are less likely to end up on the chessboard and because they most resemble a pacifier, which is the main function that they serve in my teaching. Ring pops make a good reward at the end of activities ("solve these three problems and we will break open the candy!") -- providing useful motivation to stay on task. But, more importantly, they magically create the most essential ingredient to a successful chess class for kids: peace and quiet!

The first time my entire class of ten 10-year-old boys had their "pacifiers," the room grew suddenly silent and I could lecture at the demonstration board for a full fifteen minutes, keeping their focus on the lesson at hand. In fact, our group became so quiet that parents in the next room, used to hearing a constant staccato of competitive outbursts from the boys, punctuated by occasional raucousness on the verge of riot, had to peek in to see what magic I had wrought....
In our past two sessions, I have used the ring pop moments to show my students some games, beginning with Morphy vs. the Count and the Duke (I know, I know: "old hat"--but very effective) followed by a few other games from my Mating Patterns I: Bishops and Rooks collection (especially Reti-Tartakower, Vienna 1910, and Onderka-NN, Austria 1913). Taken together, they all illustrate the concepts of Development, Initiative, and Attack on the King while helping to reinforce the "Morphy's mate" motif. I was amazed at how quickly they began putting these lessons to use in their own games: opening with the d- or e-pawn, developing pieces toward the center, castling to bring their Rook to open files, actually trying to attack their opponents' King, and even (in one instance) pulling off a mate with Bishop and Rook that was directly inspired by our lessons. Looking at games has had a powerful effect.

In the end, nothing teaches chess faster than playing over games. I remember being told that by IM Mike Valvo when I was a kid myself, just starting out with chess and playing weekly at the Westfield Chess Club (which we both frequented in the 1980s.) During one of his lectures, he said, "Just get a games collection and play over as many games as you can. The most important thing is that they be great games. You don't need detailed notes -- in fact, no notes might be best. Just play over the games until you start to see the patterns!" Of course, you should play them over with focused attention, trying to understand and absorb as much as you can. But even playing them over with little conscious effort has some effect.

At that time, I remember playing through every game in The Golden Treasury of Chess before getting hold of a Chess Informant. Today, kids can get the same effect by just browsing through Chessgames.com or NICBase or one of the many free game database sites. I often recommend websites like that to the kids and their parents, but I'm not sure how many of them have tried them out. There is no question, though, that simply playing through a lot of games will teach them a tremendous amount about the standard patterns of the game -- from pawn formations to the best squares for the pieces. By seeing all of the stages of the game, from opening, to middlegame, to endgame, kids begin to see how the stages fit together, practically like a story. They see pieces and pawns get exchanged, lines open, attacks develop, king's field sacrifices blow open castled positions, and mating patterns or passed pawns rushing to the queening square finish things off. If they look at several hundred games (which they can do in an amazingly short amount of time online, just spending an hour or two each night), they will make an incredible leap forward toward real chess mastery.

For now, I have enough of their attention for games as the ring pops allow. Maybe it's time to switch to "everlasting gob-stoppers."

Teaching Chess to Kids, Part V

I will be teaching a chess class to ten 10-year-old boys on Thursdays from 4:00- 5:30 p.m. for a few months and thought I’d reflect in these pages on my lessons. We have met twice so far and I think it is going quite well.

This is mostly the same group of kids I taught last year (see my earlier parts one, two, three, and four), so they all know how to play and have picked up the basics, plus some sense of how to win with material superiority, how to mate, and how to open the game.

Some rules need review, however, especially since kids often get confused about things and then confuse others in the course of play. During our concluding tournament last year, for instance, several of them caught a disease (from one especially aggressive player) where they thought you always had to move your King when in check and if your King could not escape check on its own then it was checkmate. This led to some incredibly silly positions where both sides thought it was checkmate after, say, 1.e4 e5 2.Qh5?! Nf6!? 3.Qxe5 “checkmate!!!” [sic]. I thought they had understood the three methods of escaping check, but it is definitely something I’ll need to review--along with refreshers on castling and en passant capture.

To make sure they are all clued in to the basics, I ordered the excellent booklet Chess Rules for Students by John Bain (very inexpensive at $3 each). This was assigned for homework the first day with the recommendation that they get through as much as they could. The more serious half of them finished it completely in one night (or so they claimed at our second meeting).

For the first lessons last year, I had started with the endgame, getting them to play "pawn battle," "sumo kings," "king and pawn battle," and various "chess mazes" as we learned the basics. With this more prepared group, I realized they’d want to get to playing with all the pieces right away. So we started by talking about the pieces, in a lecture I like to call (in a voice like Darth Vader's) "Time, Space, and the Material World" -- with most of the emphasis on material.
To get their attention, I came up with a fun gimmick. In teaching the value of the pieces, I took one of each piece and lined them up in order of their value. I then took out some cash (singles and a couple five-spots). Even small bills get kids excited, of course, and their visible presence helped to focus their attention on my lesson. I told them that a pawn was worth one dollar. Then I got them to try to figure out what the other pieces might be worth.

Though several still valued Bishops and Knights over Rooks, they were remarkably good at getting to the traditional values, suggesting that some remembered when I discussed this last year or they had heard this somewhere before. I made things a little more complicated by suggesting that a Bishop is probably worth about three dollars and ten cents to three and a quarter, which means it is slightly better than the Knight. When I started getting them into comparative values, this helped to explain why three pieces were better than a Queen. I had them compare Queen versus two Rooks (a real shocker for most) and Queen versus Rook and Bishop (I think some are still puzzling over how to explain that one, as am I, since those two pieces do combine the moves of a Queen).

We came to the King and they suggested it might be worth $20. Others said it had no value. I finally got one to call out that it was worth "infinity!" and I pursued that to its conclusion, getting them to realize that the King is the game, and to checkmate it is "priceless!" (like in the MasterCard commercials).

In reading through Todd Bardwick's Teaching Chess in the 21st Century and Chess Workbook for Children (only the latter of which is useful for experienced players and teachers -- see review at Chessville) I was reminded that, at this level, most of them are still hanging pieces left and right, so the most useful lesson is to show them how to get all this "free stuff" (as Bardwick calls it). Continuing with my money metaphor, I decided to call it "found money," which turned out to be a familiar term for this group. Getting a definition from them was a little tricky, though, and led to someone saying "money that you find?" of course, but they got the concept. "Lots of people overlook found money," I told them. "How many of you walk past pennies on the street?"

"Always be on the lookout for found money! You have to look if you are going to see it. Because if you don't see it, you are going to walk right by...."

I then gave them a "found money problem." The chief purpose was for them to see everything that was out there for the taking. The secondary purpose was for them to begin comparing possibilities -- making evaluations before jumping to decisions.

"Found Money" Problem
White to play: "show me the money!"

They saw right away that the Knight and Queen were hanging, of course. But then they had to figure out which was better to take, since you can't have both in one move. The Queen is more valuable, of course, at nine dollars. What's more, I pointed out, "if you take the Knight you are going to end up losing your Queen to ...Nxc4! That's like stopping to pick up three dollars and dropping your wallet in the process!"

It took them longer, and some coaxing, to evaluate 1.Nxe5 or finally to see 1.Qxf7+ Kh8 2.Bxf6+ and mate next move.

"So what was the most valuable piece of 'found money' on the board?"

"The King! Checkmate!" they called out.

"Priceless!"

When I teach a concept, I always try to have an activity to get them to put it into play right away. In this case, I just set them to playing a game with each other and then went around calling out whenever I saw "found money" laying on the table. They really got into that and would often look over when I called it out to say "oh yeah -- I see it, too!" I also began to see which players were a little more attuned to the game than others, and I was pleased to see one board where there never seemed to be any money to be found....

I then talked about how "material is just one chess currency. There are others, and these include Time and Space. Besides being able to exchange pieces for each other, you can also exchange them for these less tangible things. Sort of like when you go to the grocery store, you can trade your money for food--or you can go to the toy store and trade your money for toys. It's usually best to hang onto your money, but if a really cool toy comes along it might be worth it."

To illustrate, I looked at a standard opening gambit with 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 and led them in a discussion of how White gains Time and Space in exchange for the relatively small Material investment of a Pawn, or one dollar. I think it is good for kids at this level to think about sacrificing pawns, so long as they are getting some initiative for it.

I then returned to the idea that even a pawn can be a significant investment, since if Black can hang onto it into the endgame he can make a Queen. I showed them a simple position where White forces a Queen by using his majority (White Kg1, Pa5, Pb5 vs Black Kg8, Pa7). We played this out to mate with Queen and King versus King. I then had them alternate mating with Q+K vs. K to make sure they remembered it and got the concept. Material is what you usually need to win....

After working through this most basic mate, I gave them a tough problem. It was probably too tough for them, but I got them to work it out practically by brute force.

Mate in five.

In the end, White sacrifices all but one of his pawns in order to effect a breakthrough to the queening square, which leads to immediate mate. He surrenders material but still converts the win.

"Priceless!"

Teaching Chess to Kids, Part IV

White to play.

Today I meet again with the 6- to 8-year-old chess students. They are a great bunch of kids and all very bright. Not having had experience with kids this age, though, I have to admit I was initially disappointed not to see more dramatic improvement in their play. I have to keep reminding myself that most just learned the moves a month or two ago, and most of them just learned how to read! So mastering chess is going to take a while.

To help keep track of their progress (and to make sure they can continue to improve after we've stopped meeting), I made sure to teach them algebraic chess notation at our last lesson. It was surprisingly easy thing for them -- surprising because everyone said that kids this age would have trouble with it. But all of them had played the game "Battleship" (where you have to name the rows and columns with letters and numbers), so they were quick studies. And almost all of them were able to write down their moves so that I could understand them.

When I compare their two best games (which both feature illegal moves) to my own earliest recorded games at age 13 -- when I was practically twice their age and had already read several chess books! -- I have a lot of hope! You can make the comparison yourself. They have years to get that good and better. I predict that within a year some could be better than I was at age thirteen.

The diagram above is taken from one of my best games as a 13-year-old, from a match I played with a friend of mine. I could have drawn but went for the win. We both recorded the moves. Our competition drove us to read books (I must have gone through everything by Horowitz, Chernev, and Reinfeld at my public library) and by the time we began attending a chess club we were already good players.

My students have a ways to go, as you'll see. But you have to start somewhere. The most important thing is that they are writing their moves down, which means they have a chance to correct their mistakes. And being able to write chess notation means that they are able to read it, which opens up the world of chess literature to them. When they enter fourth grade (the time when kids switch from learning to read to reading to learn), they will be ready to make huge strides. Our next lessons should do a lot to improve their performances. And these first recorded games will serve as a valuable benchmark to help measure that improvement.

Teaching Chess to Kids, Part III

Tomorrow I teach my chess class to over a dozen 6- to 8-year-old boys. Some seem interested in playing in their first tournament come the end of next month (when a scholastic event is being held in their home town), so I have decided to speed up the lessons a bit and get to the opening sooner than I had planned.

I had a bit of discussion about what openings to teach them on the excellent Openings for Amateurs forum last week. Comments there convinced me the best idea is to teach them a single basic pattern as both Black and White, and preferably something they can play against each other. On Pete Tamburro's recommendation, I've decided on c5, e6, and d5 as Black (including the French, ...e6 Sicilian, and Tarrasch) and the Colle / Torre / and Queen's Gambit (with d4, e3, and either c3 or c4) as White.

This is actually a pretty good system for any beginner. It does not allow easy attacks on the King so there is no danger of getting mated quickly. It is both tactical and strategic, so they have a chance to start learning some strategic principles rather early (including the classic Isolated Queen Pawn motifs). There is a lot of flexibility and so it allows for wide experimentation and latitude for later development. And principles they learn from one side of the board will apply on the other as well.

Now I just have to figure out a way of teaching them so it will be fun....

Teaching Chess to Kids, Part II

Thursdays have become my big chess day. At night, of course, I attend the Kenilworth Chess Club (now starting at 7:00 p.m. with lectures by NM Scott Massey on the ending or FM Steve Stoyko on the opening). And from 4:30-6:00 p.m. I teach chess to fourteen 6- to 8-year-old boys (up from a dozen two weeks ago).

The chess teaching is fun, but (as you can imagine) keeping that many young kids focused on chess can be quite a challenge. I have a greater than ever admiration for grade school teachers now! So far, both of our meetings have ended by letting the kids go out to play kickball.

I have decided upon some pedagogical principles to make things work: (1) start simple and add complexity one lesson at a time, (2) make sure there is both instruction and active participation at every meeting, and (3) give them homework but make it optional (with the hope that competitive instincts will drive them to study on their own, when they learn that "knowledge is power").

I'm sure nothing that I'm doing is new, but it has been effective, so I'd like to share it. In our first lesson, I covered all of the pieces and we ended up playing "Sumo Kings" (where the object is to use the opposition to force your way across the board or stop your opponent from doing so) and "Pawn Battle" (basically eight pawns versus eight pawns). This time I showed them some King and Pawn endings and it was "King and Pawn Battle."

King and Pawn Battle.
Whoever SAFELY Queens First Wins.

I entertained them first by setting up my laptop on a projector and demonstrating with Fritz on the big screen. We started with how pawns queen and I showed them the "square" in which a pawn can be captured by the King or not. Then we did a simple K+P v. K ending involving the opposition. Then I introduced "King and Pawn Battle," using the "New">"Set-up Position" feature of Fritz to set up the Kings and the Pawns as shown above. I then had two of the better players try their hand one at a time against Fritz while the others watched and kibitzed (extensively and excitedly). I was amazed at how quickly Fritz could win these games! What I most wanted to demonstrate to them is that the most powerful piece on the board is the King--not the pawns! So move the King like Fritz moves his!

We then had a "King and Pawn Battle" tournament, with winners playing winners and losers playing losers, until we had an undefeated champion who won a prize (a beginner's chess set with explanation cards). Since we have not yet reviewed Q+K delivering mate to lone King (next time perhaps), I said that the goal of the game was to make a Queen. I should have said that the goal was to make a Queen that you can keep and which is not immediately captured, since a couple kids later misinterpreted the rule to mean that simply queening, whether safe or not, wins. I obviously am still learning!

Next time I will review and talk about Bishops and Knights, then play "King, Pawns, and Minor Pieces Battle," allowing them to choose two minors for their army (B+B, B+N, or N+N). And, if time allows, we will learn the mate with K+Q vs. K.

Teaching Chess to Kids

I recenly began teaching chess to a dozen 6-to-8-year-olds. It is a sometimes chaotic scene, especially since they all have varied skill levels. Many of them did not even know how the pieces moved, while others have played a lot (though generally without knowing the more obscure rules--such as the one where you never capture your opponent's King!) I think I did OK since reports are that friends of theirs who heard about our "club" want to get involved. But we are limiting membership for now. Chess, you see, is only for the "cool" kids...

I gave my approach to teaching a lot of thought, since I knew that if I did not create an active learning environment that I'd lose them pretty quickly. So as I introduced each piece I also presented a game or two to go with it. Playing these games allowed the more experienced kids to demonstrate their knowledge while helping the others to learn.

I started with the Rook because I think that is the easiest to explain ("it moves like a train"), and the first game we played was a "Rook Maze" that required them to get from one corner of the board to the other with several of the Rook's own pieces and some of the opponent's in the way. The trick to the maze was that capturing enemy pieces was allowed, and finding the right capture created the fastest path (sort of like having a trap door).

For the King, I first offered them checkmate with two Rooks versus King as a way of reinforcing the Rook's moves while explaining "Checkmate" to them (as best I could, since Checkmate is a hard concept for kids this age to wrap their minds around). Then we did a puzzle where a White Rook delivered a Check on the Black King and they had to find every way available to escape check (including interposing a Rook or using a Rook to capture the checking White Rook).

Finally, we played a game of "Sumo Kings" with the twelve of them against me. I got the idea from Fritz and Chesster, though I imagine chess teachers have used it forever. The idea is to teach the concept of "the opposition" and the movement of the Kings generally. The game involves setting up two Kings on opposite sides of the board with the object being to force your way from one side to the other or to stop your opponent from getting to your side (in which case it could be a draw). As you might expect, even though I presented them with a winning position to start (Kings at e1 and e8, with them as White and moving first), they lost the first game, drew the second, and did not win until the third. Then I moved their King to e2 and secured a draw, which made no sense to them at all. But we discussed the strategy and I explained (as best I could get across to them) the concept of "the opposition." At the very least they all knew how the King moved after that! I tried to keep it fun by acting like a Sumo wrestler as I moved my King, and by saying things like "Victory is mine!" or "You shall never pass me!" or "I am defeated!"

The most fun was teaching Pawns, when we broke up into pairs and played "Pawn Battle." GMs Roman Pelts and Lev Alburt call it "The Pawn Game" and you can find a summary of their description online at the wonderful Chess Corner site. Here are the instructions I wrote up for my students as part of my handout (which are different in only one important way):

" Pawn Battle."

• Exercise 6: Pawn Battle (teaches “Promotion,” “Stalemate,” “Zugzwang”)
  Set up the pawns as they are in the opening position (along the 2nd and 7th ranks as shown in the diagram below). Take turns moving your pawns forward—and remember all the rules of how Pawns work! They can move two squares on their first move or one, and then they move one square at a time. They capture diagonally, so watch out! And don’t forget the “en passant” rule!
  
• The first player to get a Queen wins. It is a draw if either side has no legal move. But if you can make a legal move you must move (there are no “passes” in chess)!
  
• Strategy: There are three basic ways to win this game if your opponent is not careful. (1) You could win if your opponent makes a mistake and allows you to win a Pawn. (2) You could also win if you can get a “passed Pawn,” meaning one you’re your opponent cannot stop from Queening, or a “Pawn majority” which will lead to a passed Pawn. (3) The game can also be won because of the “compulsion to move” or “Zugzwang.” Near the end of the game, if you time things right, your opponent might have to make a move he does not want to make once most Pawns are blocked but some can still move. Play the game long enough (and without making obvious errors) and you’ll discover what “Zugzwang” means!

I notice that Alburt and Pelts say that you can win by depriving your opponent of moves while you still can move, but that does not seem to me as effective at teaching the concept of "stalemate" as having it be a draw as soon as either player can no longer move. The object is to avoid a total lock unless you can make it a zugzwang position, where the opponent must advance into a capture.

This game proved wildly popular. Once they had played it once or twice (depending on their speed), I encouraged them to play Sumo Kings against each other, trying out different starting positions. We then returned to the lesson to review what they had learned from "Pawn Battle" about how pawns work and to finish discussing the other pieces.

I then covered the Bishop, Queen, and Knight. For the Bishop there was another "Chess Maze" that required them to get across the board with blocked pawns in the way. For a Queen I put a number of pawns on the board and asked them to add up how many the Queen could capture from its starting position. And for the Knight there was another maze and then a smothered mate in one.

That all took about an hour and then we just had a free-for-all of open play until their parents came to take them home. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to lesson number two. Maybe I'll even get to play some more "Pawn Battle," which I actually enjoy and recommend to you as a fun chess variant (sort of the chess equivalent of tic tac toe).