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Below are a list of various guides, manuals and articles on how to establish and run a scholastic chess club. If you read all of these, you'll suffer from TMI (too much information). Let's preface this whole collection with the final paragraph from the Illinois Chess Association manual: "Running a club can be as simple as just providing a place for kids to play, or as complex as having multi-tiered instruction and sponsoring teams at state and national tournaments. Your club can be whatever you, your school, and your kids want it to be." Much of the material below has advice aimed at elementary school clubs. Critique the content accordingly if you're involved in middle or high school chess. US Chess Federation: A Guide to Scholastic Chess Elizabeth Spiegel (MS Coach, National Champs): First Steps for Starting a Scholastic Chess Club (2-page summary of what to do) Laura Doman, Georgia Chess: Creating and Developing a Strong School Chess Team Illinois Chess Association: Starting a Youth Chess Program Information for Illinois Elementary School Association Coaches: An Informational Manual for Developing Scholastic Chess Programs Oklamoma SCO: Starting a Chess Club At School, How a Parent Who Barely Played Chess Did It Oklahoma SCO: Detailed Plan for a Scholastic Chess Club Hugh Patterson: Starting a Chess Club Chess Federation of Canada: Chess Teaching Manual (see page 6, "Running a School Chess Club") Jill Keto (ZoomChess): DIY - Start a Kids Chess Club at Your School Sean Marsh (UK): Six Simple Steps to Starting a School Chess Club CheezWhizz: Taking Chess To The Children Chess Scotland: Organizing a School Club (zipped .doc file) YouTube: How to start a chess club (1 minute video) YouTube: Middle school students start up chess club (1 minute video)

High School Chess Clubs -- Field Reports Manuals and guides on "How to Run a Chess Club" are helpful. But it's theory. What's really happening at high school chess clubs? Actual reports from the field below, from various online posts, edited for brevity/spelling. Tried to minimize "advice" posts (advice is easy) and gather actual club description posts. The three dashes (---) indicate a new person's posting. Feel free to add your story in a comment. What does your club do? From https://www.chess.com/forum/view/scholastic-chess/how-do-you-run-your-school-chess-club ---I am the sponsor of a high school chess club. Being that it is new and relatively small, I just let the kids play games against each other at will without any formal coaching. We meet once per week for an hour and a half after school. I guess I am looking for any input from people in similar positions on how they have structured their scholastic chess clubs to improve the players’ abilities, without losing the fun aspect of actually playing games each week, and not just running through drills or watching tutorials. ---Our team just plays matches and we coach each other ourselves our actual leader does a recap and have people who are good "challenge" for chairs. ---Your post is rather general. But good for you for starting a chess club.I ran a chess club for the past 2 years, and I don't think I could have kept the club going without a clear goal for the club.My goal was for the club to participate in a specific local scholastic chess tournament. I view a chess club like sports. E.g. if the school's football team doesn't complete, then it removes the motivation for training and practice. Plus, it removes a lot of the fun too. Same with a chess club. ---I don’t think it’s necessary to have too much coaching - 5/10 minutes per session is fine. 30 minutes would be absolutely insane.I would definitely suggest running some kind of tournament whether it be all play all, or Swiss, something where they can see how they’re doing - if they’re only playing friendlies they will quickly get bored/antsy/. ---How much coaching? I think it depends on the goal of the club. If chess improvement is the goal, then a structured lesson of reasonable length is desirable. From the OP, "I am looking for any input... on how they have structured their scholastic chess clubs to improve the players’ abilities, without losing the fun aspect of actually playing games". My reply in post #2 was intended to address those specific desires. The OP mentioned that it's a high school club, implying members are age 14-18. A 30-minute lesson is surely tolerable at that age. And it's only 1/3rd of the entire 1.5 hour session. If one thinks 30 minutes is too long, then perhaps 20-minutes is a reasonable compromise. ---I think 30 minutes of learning is ideal. It's not too long. I would split it in half though, a 15 minute entertaining video followed by 15 minutes of discussion of what that particular video lesson was about. Then bam! Let the games begin. Let em go at it to try to apply what they just learned. And tournaments every few sessions r a very good thing, and fun. Maybe 1 day each month a 3 round Swiss of at least 10 minutes on each clock. Competition makes everyone better in all areas, not just chess. ---We record results of games played during practice and have a ranking system. This has been a great motivator for our students. My team is younger than high school, so they are using chesskid.com. I set up chesskid challenges for them, such as attempt X puzzles or complete X lessons in a certain time period. I also set up two chesskid fast tournaments per month. This gives the kids motivation to practice outside of club meetings. A lot of the kids hated doing puzzles until I set up a contest. Just by doing a lot of puzzles they saw improvement and do them on their own now. All the practice motivators have been helpful, but the single best thing we've done is participate in scholastic team tournaments. Out of about 35 kids I've taken to tournaments, 34 were hooked and wanted to do it again. We focus a lot on the team, which means during practice after you win you show your teammate where they went wrong so someone on another team doesn't do the same thing to them at the next tournament. ---Our HS club also meets once a week for 90 minutes, during the winter (about four months). Here's what we do. We elect officers at the 2nd meeting. They help set the schedule for the season, which usually includes a variety: a 3-week slow tournament, a few 3-round Game/15 tournaments, a speed tournament, a bughouse tournament, a 2 vs 2 long game session (usually earlier in the season, pairing a vet with a newbie, I instruct the vet to teach the newbie "everything you know about chess"), one computer night where everybody has to have/get a laptop and someone (officer?) leads them on a chess tour of all the good chess websites online. Etc. Early on in the season, I have all the players (who can) play in the "Online Club Championship", a slow tournament (1 move every 3 days) at chess.com. You can design custom "medals" for the top three finishers, and I do. (Past medals were Lord of the Rings, Marvel heroes, Harry Potter them, and stylized school logos.) It takes a few steps: 1.Send me your online name 2.I send out chess.com Invites, then 3.Respond to your online invite by the tourney start deadline to be in the tourney. It takes work to set up, but once it starts, you can forget about it, and the students will daily be thinking chess for two months. Good investment. When I have energy, I also set up an online tactics contest, either at chesstempo.com, chess.com, lichess.com, chessgym.net or similar. Players send me a screenshot of their tactics score and # of problems solved after the contest start date, then another screenshot before the contest end date. I rank them by 1) score and 2) number of problems attempted, then average the two. It helps to have some sort of prestige prize (top three displayed during the season?), and actual prize at the end. Delegate this to an officer if you can. (Delegate everything if you can!) Concur with Brother7 above - Lesson, followed by play is a good way to go.We attend a couple tournaments, and we play in a league against other schools, the top five in our club "make Varsity" in league, and the league awards nice All-Star medals and plaques, so that adds fun & spice to the club. From https://www.chess.com/forum/view/scholastic-chess/new-to-coaching-teaching-people-chess ---Find out which other schools in your area have a chess team and arrange a match pronto. This really excites the kids. ... or find chess tournaments for them. it is okay even if the tournament is a mix of adults and young ones. ---Keep your teaching part to 20-30 minutes and let them play for 20-30 minutes after the teaching. I organize a tournament for the playing part. This is a great introduction to learn about touch move, do not talk rule. I post the tournament results on the school board with the top 5 players. Nobody likes to see their name at the bottom. ---Teaching is essential. My club has the members bring their own boards and pieces. Clocks are provided though. You should have the more advanced players teach groups of inexperienced or less as good players. If you're a good coach you should then teach the advanced ones. Create the club like a miniature tournament setting. At my club, we have rounds and board numbers - very much like a tournament. ---I was in the same situation (high school teacher, asked to advise chess club) in the '90's. Initially I put up the money for cheap sets and 2" square vinyl boards and a couple cheap analog clocks. The coaches of the several seriously organized clubs in our county's schools ran swiss system tournaments. Eventually I became the tournament director. The profits were small - usually around $100 (maybe more like $150-$200 in todays money), but that was enough for several cheap chess clocks. I also picked up several used books like Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess or, my preference, Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals - it has rules, tactics, strategy, opening, endgame all in 60 pages - which fits the avg. teenager's attention span for a week. We contacted the state chess organization and they sent a local IM to speak and teach at one of our meetings each year. During our club meetings, before I turned the kids loose to play Chess or Bughouse Chess, I had a talk about tactics: forks/double attacks, discovered attacks, pins, etc. As we got better, we found we didn't have the opening repertoire some other teams had, so we started looking at unpopular openings we could spring on them. The Bishop's Opening had been out of favor for over 60 years - Kasparov hadn't played it yet to bring it back - and it has a relatively simple plan so you usually don't have to wonder what to do when you get to the middlegame. You play 1 e4, most high school kids answer 1 e5, then you do 2 Bc4 and, around move 5 you get in an f4, holding off on Nf3 until you do, and relentlessly attack your opponent's Kingside. Often, you're able as White to castle Queenside and launch a Pawn Storm. The kids were excited about the idea and when they won with it, they kept playing it and finding new traps, wrinkles, etc. We rode the Bishop's Opening to the County Championship and 3rd in State. One final thing: 50% of the art of coaching is knowing there is more than one way to train and more than one way to play, but convincing your players that your way works. Get a couple good results - and make the kids feel two wins and three losses at a tournament is a victory when you're starting out - and they'll follow your instructions because you bring them wins! From https://www.chess.com/forum/view/scholastic-chess/building-a-high-school-chess-program-from-the-ground-up ---I'm a history teacher at a high school in Western NC.I have been the advisor of our chess club for the last five years. Right now we are strictly recreational. Meet every week and play chess for fun.I want to take my club to the next level. We are located in a college town and we have a lot of really smart kids that could do some great things with chess. If there are any other advisors or coaches out there I would love to hear ideas. Things you're doing with your club members/students/players to help build chess skills and chess thinking. ---Internal tournament with prizes will be good start.Encourage them to play more OTB tournaments. ---I have a few high school programs. The biggest thing is its important to explain to students than rather being a distraction to school work, SATs, other extracurriculars, etc., it's something that could actually help them get into college. I point them to my college essay which was about chess. ---Hey buckey. I’m one of the student leaders for my high school’s chess club, and one thing we started doing this year that’s been really fun and I would say has improved my skill a lot is this intramural tournament. We’ve been doing over the course of the school year. We originally hoped to have all 22 people who signed up play a round robin, followed by an 8 person knockout bracket but not everyone showed up consistently, so following this week’s meeting we decided to take the 8 players with the most wins right now and start our bracket next week. ---I'm on the varsity chess team at my school. Some of the things we do are compete in the local high school chess league and have two inter-club tournaments a year with awards for the top player overall and the top new player, it's usually just gift cards. Also if you beat our coach in a blitz chess match you get candy some candy of your choosing and if five or more of us beat him in a simul he orders us all pizza. Another fun thing to encourage self-improvement is having a little sheet of accomplishments that they can do to get something. If you have no teams near you I suggest that you make a club on chess.com so they can compete against other clubs during the year and have tournaments and play among themselves during the summer. Maybe y'all could play against our team next year! ---We had our end of year pizza party today. It was great, we had eight kids there, seven of whom I expect to return next year. ...Next year we are going to expand and try to include our middle school kids in our club meetings, get them playing, from there we can start to think about the intramural tournament. ---I think there are a number of things to start and make a high school chess team succeed. In Oregon we actually have an Organization called the Oregon High School Chess Team Association. It more or less tries to incorporate the same type system as other High School sports regarding the divisions based on school strength. So for me it may have been easier than most. It all began with teachers like yourself, teaches are the mainstay as they are around for years teaching and it follows they are the key to longevity. If your serious there is likely other High School teachers in other schools who would join you for a long term goal of forming a yearly competition between the High Schools. In Portland Oregon we meet at Lincoln High School which is centrally located to the schools around it. On Wednesday we have league play which starts in late October and runs through March. Any schools may compete even middle schools. They are five member teams. In March there is a High School Championship which might meet anywhere in the state. Always held at the local High School you can understand why teachers are the anchor in the whole affair. Teachers in a lot of cases are only mentors in some cases. Parents are often eager to start teams as their kids are good players. I was such a parent who happened to import chess sets so I always donated chess sets and boards and clocks to all the schools my son attended. I assisted middle school and grade school teachers in some cases 1 to 3 days a week after school. My sons high school did not have a chess team when he started. I went to the athletic director and told him I wanted to start a chess team, intending to compete in the High School league and play in the yearly state championships. I told him I would supply all the sets, boards, and bags and equipement if he provided the clocks and awarded Varsity letters to those who played on the team. He was a chess player himself so I was lucky. He said well Dennis the kids think those letters are pretty important so give as many as you want. So I did. I started with five students and by the end of the first year I had a team of 16. Three teams competed in the Championship one in the open section. I think the reason my team became a huge success in High School was because I treated the beginners like the best players, in fact I gave them more attention. After they played a league game I made sure to ask them how it went and if they had fun. Everyone always gets their adrenalin running when competing. The team would meet in the library as well as anyone else who wanted to join. The librarian would always try to chase those out of the library that were not on the team but I would say they were joining the team I kept anyone who would show up. Lets face it, no one wants to be on a team of 5 you get tired of playing one another. On Fridays the library became a social meeting point I would have 20 to 40 students in there playing chess, I just kept donating more and more chess equipment. From those attending chess club on Friday I recruited students constantly. I also donated high quality plastic sets and boards, not the $3 kind, the $40 kind. I think that is important as well. I told each recruit look, join the team get on the bus during league at least twice (12 week season) and compete in the State Team Championships and I will give you a Varsity Letter. I stressed to every member of the team your grades are more important. If you have a test or important paper to turn in skip the league match. That's what they did. I had team chess shirts made with a great logos on the front and back, Sweat Shirts as well. I made it manditory for the team to wear their team shirts and sweat shirts to school on league days. High School promoting the team. At the weekly rally before the state championships, the Athletic Director played a game of speed chess against my best player in the Gym before the entire school student body. We also had a faculty vs the Varsity Chess Team before the State Championships. By the time I left we had won several 4A state championships and one Overall Championships which the Athletic Director gave us a banner hanging on the Gym Wall with the rest of the teams. My Varsity team consisted of 35 students when I left I awarded all Varsity Letters. You have to make it as important a sport as football, basketball , soccer or anything else and the students will invest what time they can. Once you get them to on the bus for a team match they are usually hooked for the duration of high school. I had a great deal of fun doing it, the team became quite a success and won back to back state championships before left in the 4A division all 35 team members were immortalized on a plaque mounted on the Gym Wall which was for teams which won back to back state titles. I left in 2013 but assisted in 14 and to this day the team still thrives and continue to win state tiltles. ... ... By the way when I started the Varsity Chess Team the students had to buy their team shirts and sweat shirts. When I ran the Oregon High School Chess Team Championship at my high school which was an heck of a lot of work I got the Boosters to sell their hot dogs, pizza etc just like the other major sports. I then got them to support the Varsity Chess Team, they now buy their uniforms and for their food when they travel for the State Championships. Not sure I made it clear the Oregon State Athletic Association runs football, baseball, soccer. The Oregon High School Chess Team Association is a separate organization just to support high school chess they try to follow the same rules that the OSAA sports. The Oregon High Schoo Chess Team Association was started by Teachers in our state and Parent Volunteers. From https://www.chess.com/forum/view/scholastic-chess/do-you-coach-a-chess-teamclub ---Hey there. I am currently teaching at the middle school level and run the chess club at the school. I basically took over for the last sponsor when he left and started from scratch. Last year was very unorganized, i.e. just show up and play chess with each other, no attendance taken, no "lessons" taught, a slight rating system. Although this was fun and I have several kids from last year that are still members, it was a lot of work for me. As you probably know from experience, kids do appreciate order and organization (whether they like to admit it or not). This year I changed a bunch of things that have had a profound effect on their learning and the amount of fun that we have. I know that you are at the primary level, but maybe you can take or leave a few of the things that I do to help encourage our kids: I take attendance. We have Chess Club the first day of every week after school for two hours unless otherwise notified by me or due to other circumstances. The kids are allowed to miss if they were excused-absent from school that day, OR if they have come to let me know that they cannot make it that day for a good reason (you can use your discretion). This helped me separate the kids that valued chess club from those that just showed up when they felt like it. If they are out for a sport, it is considered excused. Those that are out for sports are recorded on the ratings sheets that I post around the school as "inactive" members. Expectations: I require that all kids demonstrate good sportsmanship. They must shake hands after every match and respect others while their games are in progress by no "blurting" things out when they observe them. Challenges: The kids can challenge any member of the club to a match. They are allowed one "veto" for each meeting time, meaning that they can decline one match per meeting. Lessons: We regularly discuss standard book openings (Ruy Lopez, English Opening, Sicilian Defense) and the rationales behind them. These are not tested and aren’t required to learn, but do help to expose the kids to them. Everybody must keep a notebook. That is, every match must be kept track of by both players in algebraic notation. This allows my kids to learn how the algebraic system of notation works, and also allows them to resume matches if they must adjourn for the day until the next meeting. (This was a big help, since players last year wanted to decide matches based upon material advantages, and would sometimes just stall). Within their notebooks we have "progress tracking sheets." I wanted the Chess Club this year to be about how hard a kid is willing to work and not so much about skill, although skill is rewarded with higher rating and special status honors. I track the kids progress in two main categories: Chess Club Status, and Number of Games Played Status. About Chess Club Status: These statuses are based solely upon a kid's desire to want to learn. The different statuses are (in order from smallest to greatest) Chess Club Novice, Chess Club Premium Player, Chess Club Officer, Chess Club Elite Officer, and Chess Club Ace. My intent was to allow those who really truly care about the game to be able to be recognized for their accomplishments in the study of the game, since skill varies from person to person. Within each Chess Club Status category, I require certain goals to be met. Each kid keeps track of their progress using graphical representation (this is great for our visual kids and also allows the kids to SEE their progress, thus making it more tangible for them) in their notebooks. Here is a breakdown of the goals for each section... [Lengthy section, see original post]. As each player earns each new thing, I just sign off on it. Of course I have purchased the different keychains, chess pins, dog tags and things from chess websites. Man, the way kids will work for a little trinket…you’ve got to love it. The second status category was Number of Games Played Status. The way I figured it was that a kid should receive recognition for the amount of time they have spent playing chess, and therefore I decided to track the number of games that they played and reward them thusly. Number of Games Played Status: Beginner: Although the player may not be a beginner in skill, the beginner status signifies that this player has played less than 10 games in the WMS Chess Club. Apprentice: An Apprentice chess player has played at least 10 matches. These players have put effort into becoming better chess players. Apprentices are on their way to becoming Journeyman chess players at WMS. Journeyman: A Journeyman chess player has put a significant amount of her or his time and effort into the game. This status is achieved by playing at least 20 matches in the WMS Chess Club. Established: An Established chess player status signifies that the player has played at least 30 matches. These players have spent a large amount of time practicing their chess skills. Sage: A sage by definition is a profoundly wise person; someone venerated for the possession of wisdom, judgment, and experience. These players have dedicated themselves to the game, and have accomplished playing at least 50 matches. This honor is extremely rare and something to be absolutely proud of.Lastly I offer small long-term awards for the kids. These are special honors awarded at the end of the season that can be obtained by those who maybe chose not to progress on the Chess Club Status track. They are as follows: Season’s Distinguished Honors:The following honors earn a member a special memento that signifies their achievement(s). Knight Keychain: This honor will signify that the player played more COMPLETE matches than anyone else during one meeting time. Rook Keychain: This honor will go to the player that won a match faster than anyone else during one meeting time. Queen Keychain: This honor will signify that the player won more matches than anyone else during one meeting time. King Keychain: This honor will signify that the player is the top rated player in the WMS Chess Club at the end of the season. In their notebooks, I’ve included graphics of the different awards to help to drive them to learn more about chess. Once again the whole intent was to help encourage kids to take the learning of the game into their own hands and progress as far as they “choose” to go (sorry about the Glasser reference, but I love his stuff). I also include a Vocabulary sheet for the kids. Of course proper vocabulary is a good thing to use. In other words, it’s a Knight and not a “horsey.” I’ve included the following List of Chess Club Vocabulary. ... [See original post for list].Last but not least, I like to do a trivial ratings system with the kids. This also helps to drive some of them. ... [See original post for rating system]. I think this is pretty much all I have to contribute. I’m just hoping that there are others out there that have any suggestions for me. I have continually tweaked things to make our stuff run smoother, as we constantly do in education. I really like the other comment on your blog about playing a team vote chess match. This touches upon the principle of EMERGENCE which is prevalent in nature. ... Two more quick things: I do run a tourney at near the end of the year. I allow STUDENTS to join…AS WELL AS TEACHERS!!! Students that join must be in the Chess Club. The teachers that join play only against teachers. I really encourage the teachers to join since (sadly) many of them do not know how to play the game. The winner of the teacher gets to play the winner of the students. Regardless, I offer prizes for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of the student tournament. The 3rd place receives a medal and a Chess Notebook (very nice actually that allows them to record their games via algebraic notation). The second place winner receives the same, plus a small checkbook sized magnetic traveling chess board. The first place winner receives all of that plus the t-shirt of their choice from a chess-sponsored website (appropriate of course). The last thing that I wanted to say as a side note is that I got a lot of these ideas before this last year after reading a book called The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle which basically posits that greatness is “grown” and isn’t “born.” Basically this gentleman says that “talent” is due to a “bundling of neurons” in the brain due to their constant use. This is an analog to “high-speed Internet” of the brain. I wanted kids to practice, practice, and then practice the fundamentals of chess with the hope that they would internalize the patterns and complete logical processes as second nature. In one sentence I can say: “Chess club this year has come a great way from the previous year.” From https://www.chess.com/forum/view/scholastic-chess/chess-club2(Useful post. Teacher is asked to start a high school club. Others give lots of advice.)This posting was near the end: ---For those who were following, after a month or so the chess clubs going pretty well. There are 24 students who have come to every meeting and usually there's a good 30 or so students. We've worked out a ladder system and set up school sponsored monthly tourneys with chess related prizes. First tourneys prize will be a very attractive chess board with a runner up travelers chess set. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/cwsb4o/advice_on_starting_a_chess_club_in_my_high_school/ ---Let them play. It's that simple. Playing is fun.People are going to naturally pair up with others of similar ability levels.Even introverted kids like to talk one on one to other introverted kids. --- Focus on making it fun. Work individually with kids who legitimately want to get better, and show them those tools individually. Most of them just want to play with their friends. You maintain their interests by keeping it fun and not being serious, except for the few individuals who want that. ---I am a teacher and I have led a few student chess clubs. I'm a roughly 1500 player.Most students just want to play. If you're starting a new club, you will only have a few people who understand more than how to move the pieces.I generally do a 10-15 minute lesson, something basic like how to do a queen and king v. king checkmate, general opening strategy, R&K v. K checkmate. Every week I do something new. If you have an account, put it on a screen and do a couple basic puzzles together.But generally, people just want to play. So let them, and the people who want to get better will seek you out and you can analyze games. I'll frequently play without my queen against my new students. This amazes them when I win. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/atre4m/im_a_16_year_old_high_school_student_and_i_run/ ---My freshmen year (I’m a junior right now), there were only 4 people. Somewhat disappointed, I reached out to the student body, made posters and announcements.Proud to say that the current chess club has 46 members, about 20-30 regulars (fair number of them are in track the same times we have meetings).I made it my mission to teach those who don’t know in ways they’ll find interesting. It’s working out great. ... Guys and girls come in and bring their friends. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/96tl45/starting_a_high_school_chess_team/[Summary: Enthusiastic high schooler wants to start club, asks for advice. A high rated player dishes out a big helping of advice.] https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/7poxxd/facilitating_high_school_chess_team/ ...I also run a high school chess club. I enjoy it because I like chess, but to be honest, none of my students are good at chess and they also don't really express any interest in learning. They just want to play. It's a little bit frustrating because I'm a teacher and I know quite a bit about chess, but I basically just let them play because that's what they want. One thing I do is lend my chess books to anyone who is interested. You could do that, or get some from the library to share. ---I've coached a couple of High School teams.The most important thing you will do is provide a place to practice, some ground rules for determining board order some equipment for them to use and of course getting the logistics of going to matches together. Helping them organize fundraising activities will really help their commitment to and pride in the team as well.Once you've given them a place and time to practice they'll get good depending on their level of competitiveness and how much they fall in love with the game. There's many lifetimes worth of great instructive info online and the ones who want to will access it.The others will get better from practicing and competing against them.Bottom line, you can be a great sponsor for them even if you never pushed a pawn. It's that kind of game. ----You don't have to reinvent the wheel here. If you want curriculum, look at the Chess Steps Method. They're affordable and come with a teacher's manual. You can break instruction up into really short lessons (15 minutes) and then let kids play. Students can take books home and work on problems. As they (and you!) progress, you can work your way up through the steps. I did this with my students years ago, and we started winning local tournaments. Over the past four years, we have finished 8th, 7th, 4th, and 2nd last year in the state. I now have students better than me, so I convinced the school to hire a coach for an advanced class (roughly 1000-1800), and I teach the beginner/intermediate class (roughly 400-1200). ---The steps method is great, as is winning chess strategy for kids by jeff coakley. A main goal for you will be to get your students excited about learning. Most chess learning by your students will take place when they study or play on their own time, so getting them excited about learning and playing chess and then guiding them down the right path through good learning materials and advice is usually the way to go. ---Honestly, I started playing chess in middle school and our coach was one of the player's father who didn't know too much about chess other than that his son liked it, and wanted to be on a chess team. So the dad got permission from the school to hold a chess club, bought a few boards/sets and 3 chess clocks, and held the club for 2 or so hours every Thursday. Most of his lessons were really simple after teaching everyone about how to take notation and how the pieces moved. The first hour or so was a class collaboration review of a class chosen game out of 3 choices (generally one choice was the most interesting game from one of the past weeks of any club member-submitted game, the second choice was a game off chessgames.com randomly chosen, and the third choice was generally an article featured game again chosen at random from the USCF chess magazine chess life.) There was a quick vote in most cases for choice a) submitted club member games, and so the whole club would discuss each move of the game and whether they thought there was a mistake made with each move or not. The game could be one played at an otb tournament, or a blitz game off the internet, or even games played in the second hour. Whatever games the student thought might be interesting to look at were submitted to his email and he just picked one the following week. Similar deal was done with the chessgames games but instead of talking about whether each move was a mistake, it was a game of everyone guess the winning side's next move. And obviously if it was an article, he just took a few notes and based off those, gave a lecture which more or less paraphrased the chess life article. Generally the second hour was to let the students play against one another in 5 minute blitz games. There was an effort to make sure all members played against everyone else, but not overly so. Every 3rd week, if he noticed that two players had been playing each other exclusively for the hour in the last two meetings, he'd make it a swiss tournament day of 5 rounds with a pairing software he'd bought? I guess. ... He was simply there to help make sure shady stuff didn't happen, and to keep order and that was good enough for everyone. ---When I was a student I was the best in the high school (pretty easy feat - was probably the only one playing outside of school). Everyone else was pretty much there to play and have fun which as a person passionate about the game was a bit frustrating. What got me really excited was the teacher who held it had an open challenge that if you could beat him he'll give you $50. He was by no means a GM but was a step above in terms of tactics (I'm going with maybe 1400-1500 ELO?). He always made sure I had a game against him every week. I eventually beat him and got the $50, but it was the fact that I learnt so much from playing him and in return he really enjoyed the challenge of going undefeated. I am thinking of getting into teaching and feel if I were to go in there I would adopt the same strategy as this teacher. Those who want to learn are going to pay attention to the basic rules (en passant, castling, developing, discovered checks) and may learn more from playing you than they will getting confused over whatever a London system or a French defense is. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/6bad9d/considering_starting_up_a_high_school_chess_club/ ---I've been running the Chess Club in my school for the past few years now. At the start it can be tough but once you get a few lads into it you can start designating some jobs to them to loosen the load. If you can get another teacher you like, and with a nice room preferably, to help you out it makes everything easier. They don't even have to be good at chess, just a go between from you to higher ups in the school really helps if you get to the stage of organizing matches with other schools. It also gives your club a bit more credibility if the schools suspects that you would just be messing around in a room after school. Sets are obviously important but you seem to have them already so great! I would imagine that you will need some chess clocks if you plan to play against other schools. I tend to announce when and where the club is meeting in assembly. Normally around the start of the school year and if the numbers are particularly down I'll announce it again. Don't worry too much about how good anyone is at the start just focus on getting people there and playing. Nothing is worse than someone really interested showing up to an empty room. You want the club to fun and enjoyable for all, that should be your goal. Get good at teaching the basics, you don't need to be some super amazing chess coach (helps if you are!). The people who are truly interested will stay regardless but if you can get those new players who are on the edge into the game quickly and effectively it will really help bolster your numbers. If the club grows to decent size you may even look at getting the school to hire a strong coach to really bolster the standard. Just some advice for meeting times. I don't how it works in your school regarding lunch times but in mine I found meeting after school on any day except Friday to be a lot more effective for retaining members but if you want to get more of those people who are unsure and convince them to play lunch time can be great. Good luck with your club! https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/5h5enh/advice_on_the_formation_of_a_high_school_chess/ ---The most important thing you can do is to be nice to beginners and visitors. Don't take pleasure in crushing someone; take pleasure in teaching them and make them feel good when they do something well. Make it fun. ---In my old high school chess club, we hold in-house tournaments online and try to somewhat replicate the world championship cycle (from the 70s, not today's train wreck) and that's proven to be pretty fun so far. I use an excel add-in to keep track of ratings as well. This is always better with more people but you should still have some kind of competition and method to measure progress in a club. You could also play competitively with other schools but you'd have to arrange that with your state's high school organization that's in charge of that. ---For a leader of a club, the most important qualities are motivation, organizational skills, recruiting, and ensuring the club participants enjoy the club activities. Your actual chess skill can be somewhat unrelated to all those! For a small club, your primary goal should be that it stays around and grows. Therefore with kids, the primary goal should be that they have fun participating in it, want to come back, recommend their friends come along as well, etc. Having fun playing chess > raising their rating by 100 points every semester. The best solution to "ahh I can't teach!" is to find a kind adult / parent / grandparent who's good at chess and ask if they want to donate their time teaching some lucky kids the game. Eventually you should find someone who will jump for joy at getting to coach like that, the same as a parent coach for some amateur kids' sport team. ... Oh, and teach everyone how to play bughouse. That's always crazy fun. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/53fjc0/suggestions_for_training_my_high_school_chess/[High school player wants to develop his lunchtime chess club, asks for advice.] ---Hi OP--high school chess coach here. As a player, your ability to coach is very limited. Your best option is to replace the coach. Seriously, start by talking to your principal. Explain that your coach isn't a strong enough player to foster further progress, and ask if your principal can allocate funding to pay an outside coach. I had this happen at my school. Some of my players got as good as me (1600ish) and I knew I didn't have the time to get good enough to continue helping them improve, so I went to the principal (my boss) and asked for funding to pay a coach (a friend of mine) for 1 class per week. This friend is about 2480, so now my players continue to improve. So at my school I teach the beginner/intermediate class, and he teaches the advanced class. I coordinate all tournaments and handle logistics, like for state and nationals. Students can attend either class or both. We have different approaches--I focus on pattern recognition and tactics and he focuses on openings and game analysis. Now this is a long-term solution. For the short-term, use YouTube! There are tons of great videos, from outstanding coaches, and it's all free. Just incorporate follow-up: Don't just watch a video on an opening, play it! ---Ultimately, it's up to the intermediate players to improve for themselves through independent study. The information is all there online, but putting in the effort is hard, what with life being so distracting. From https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/yxe8k/just_started_a_chess_club_at_my_high_school/ ---Something my club does (we aren't very serious) is an "up and down". I hadn't heard of it before I started going so I don't know how common it is, but if you haven't heard of it before you line up as many boards as you can and have everyone play 5 minute games. If you win you go up a board and play as white and if you lose you go down a board and play as black. If there's a draw black goes up. The person who wins on top board stays there as black and the person who loses on bottom board stays as white. If this confusing at all feel free to ask any questions. We also play a fair amount of bughouse for a chess club and it's a ton of fun, and a good way to mix things up. As far as lessons go I think as long as everyone knows how to play it's probably better to learn by doing. Maybe go over some simple checkmates in addition to teaching how the pieces move if it's needed. I think it's easier to learn by analyzing games with your opponent and seeing the mistakes you made. ---I've never been part of a (high) school club, so I don't know how common it is to have lessons be part of it or how good the players will be. Really it should be up to you and the other people who go to the club. I do recommend having some sort of structure to it just because the guy who ran my college's club (I want to take it over this year) didn't know what he was doing so we would just kind of show up and play whoever was there in untimed games which got boring. We also didn't have any players who were actually serious besides me so I didn't like it much. From https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1aomp9/my_high_school_team_is_having_trouble_getting/ ---In my old high school there was an area where everyone congregated after school, waiting for rides and such. (I assume all schools are like this) My chess team played in the same vicinity, and this attracted bored kids who wanted to watch and play.Basically its easier to bring the game to the kids than it is to get them to come. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/26hdfw/im_a_pretty_awful_chess_player_i_have_the_chance/ ---Covering the basics of tactics can be a real eye-opener for a young player new to the game. I used to play around in my high school club, and didn't really like it all that much (I went because my brother went, and he was a far better player than I). I used to lose constantly and not really understand why, or what I was doing. I'd kind of just amble along. Looking back, I wish we'd been taught the basics of tactics. I'm talking about pins, skewers, forks, and discovered attacks in particular (but you can also throw zugzwang and zwischenzug in there too!). These tactical devices I only learned much later, and they took me from a ~700 walking catastrophe to a ~1200 noobie who at least pulls a good move out every now and then. More important, learning these things showed me the beauty of chess. I feel like covering this might be worth an afternoon or two, and it's easy for even a newcomer like you to learn these things enough to be able to teach them. ---1.Be there for any of the members. Be a facilitator, enabler, coordinator - not necessarily a good chess player.2.Get used to the fact that there will be weak players and strong players. Teach everyone and expect everyone to behave appropriately and with respect regardless of playing strength.3.See if you can connect up to some adults that are players and can bring them in one at a time to advise/play/lecture as a special event.4.Consider starting a rating system within your club. Or a ladder even if you know who will end up winning it.5.Get some resources like:Used chess books split into beginner, intermediate, advanced which cover openings, tactics and strategy.An "older" laptop with a chess engine installed so that students can use it as a resource for position evaluation and idea testing.tactics training software6.Bring a puzzle to the club every week with some sort of appropriate prize for being the first to solve it correctly on paper. They need to submit the answer to you on paper. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1j2p6f/im_president_of_my_high_schools_chess_clubhelp/ ---My school had a semi-active chess club. We never met, but we'd set up tournaments (beginner, intermediate, advanced, 8 people per section, single elimination). Give people a week to play a game, winner's prize was a free lunch at some local pizza shop.That's really all we ever did, plus we had chess sets available for play, so people would play during lunch if they wanted. ---I am the faculty sponsor/chess coach at my school, so I have tons of pointers for you! First, find a place to play. I am a librarian, so we just have mats and pieces for students to play with anytime in the library. Some schools use a teacher's classroom after school/during lunch. Whatever you do, make sure it is consistent (every Wednesday at lunch, or every day from x time to y time). Hopefully your school can give you $50 or so to order some supplies (Wholesale Chess, btw). If not, do a little fundraiser. Every club loves bake sales, but I prefer chess-related stuff. Ask a local master if she/he will come out and do a simul. Everyone who wants to play pays $5. Use the proceeds to buy equipment. Or coordinate an all-school tournament with a nominal entry fee. Give each student their pairing and give them a week to get their match done. I have detailed sign-up forms and rules that I'd be glad to share--PM me. The point is, you're getting people to play as much as possible, which should always be the first goal. Second, identify who wants to be competitive and get information to them on upcoming tournaments in your area. Work out carpools to get people to/from the Saturday scholastic tournaments. Win a team trophy or two, have it announced, display it publicly, and you'll have an excellent recruitment tool. Third, contact local clubs and ask if you can play there at a discounted rate. Ask if they have a master they can send to come talk to students at lunch to share their experience of how they got so good. Fourth, get people interested in all kinds of chess. Show one of ChessNetwork's crazy bullet tournaments (he's on Youtube). Get people playing anti-chess (suicide), and bughouse, and Fischer random (Chess 960). Get people playing blitz (students love blitz). Fifth, ask your librarian if they can order a few chess books. You definitely need a rule book, and there are some more I would recommend (again, PM me if interested). Sixth, learn to delegate. Students love having officer titles because it (kinda) looks good on college apps. So task your vice president with printing flyers for upcoming scholastic tournaments. Task your secretary with identifying some good youtube videos to watch (maybe a 15 minute analysis of some GM game). Seventh, take a deep breath and relax. Since you love chess and are enthusiastic about it, you've already addressed the most aspect of coordinating a club. All you have to do now is infect some key people with the enthusiasm (like your school librarian, a teacher, your officers, your principal, etc), then put into place a few things mentioned above (one step at a time!) and before you know it, it will all be up and running smoothly.

Chess Coach Newsletter Index Hear what other coaches are saying Starting in April 2010 and continuing for 13 issues, the USCF produced a newsletter for scholastic chess coaches. The first seven issues compiled multiple responses from USCF certified chess coaches to various questions or topics. "Because there is no single best way to coach Chess that fits all coaches and players, this format was chosen because it gives a variety of viewpoints to each topic. Readers are urged to use whatever is contained herein in their coaching of students." Information on software, websites, technology and books may be dated -- more resources are available now than in 2010. Click on the question/topic to get to the matching newsletter, then peruse the index. (In parentheses: the number of responses to that particular question.) Certified Chess Coach Newsletter Topics How do you make learning and improving in Chess enjoyable? (18) How to teach sportsmanship and teamwork (13) How do I tell someone who is going to start a new Chess program this fall to prepare? (15) Using Chess to help At-Risk Students (8) How do you incorporate computer programs in coaching? (8) Things to take care of in preparing to take players to their first tournament (12) How to develop an individualized learning plan (8) How to get beginners to slow down and analyze the board (14) Should my club sponsor a tournament next year? (14) Attracting minorities and girls into your Chess program (10) How do I best advertise my chess program? (13) How to market Chess as a valuable learning tool to prospective education boards (7) How to raise money for your program (11) How to teach checkmate to lower level or beginning players (16) When and how to teach opposition (8) What techniques are used to diagnose what went wrong in a tournament game? (4) How do I help sensitive players improve without hurting their sensibilities? (15) How to work with differing levels and ages of players (7) How can a parent help their child to improve their Chess playing? (14) What are some of the characteristics of your best players and/or favorite players? (18) The pros and cons of online Chess coaching (15) How many hours a week, not including tournaments, do you coach Chess? (17) How much time to invest in coaching a child that doesn't understand, enjoy or love the game, when the parents want the child to continue (16) What books, software and videos do you recommend for various levels of scholastic chess players?

Hi all, two separate topics here.1. Just finished it, highly recommend David MacEnulty's new book Sunrise in the Bronx. Not only tells his own story of how he became a full time chess teacher in New York, but is full of insights, tips, lessons and great stories of how to work with kids, for their benefit. Read a summary and the first 2.5 chapters at Amazon.2. Chess Life Kids magazine (June 2025) had a thoughtful article on how to study tactics, called Online or On Paper. It's been reprinted both online as a web page, and in downloadable PDF form.

Hey all, looking for input.  Starting a high school chess league, and it will be rated using our own rating system (not USCF rated).  Hardly any chess clocks owned in the area, so we're going to allow cel phone chess clock apps.  Figure the chance of cheating is slim, since both sides can see the clock.  Still, what kind of cheating prevention measures should we take, if any? Ideas we've had include   Allow floor judges to inspect the phone before, and after, a game   Randomly specify whose clock gets to be used, before each round (White, or Black)   Have a random pattern of trading clocks between boards (i.e. for Round 1, announce at start of round that Board 1 trades clock/phone with Board 2, etc)   Keep cel phone usage forbidden for any other purpose in the playing hall Thoughts?  Anyone else hold tournaments with cel phone chess clock apps, how didi it go?  Any issues arise?

"My Story -- Engaging High Schoolers in Chess" Adam Porth of Idaho has an instructive story to tell. It's in his YouTube Video, and also you can get his PowerPoint slides that are used in the video. Sample slides:

The U.S. Chess Federation has monthly webinars on Chess in Education, you can find their YouTube Playlist here. As of today, it doesn't list them all (needs updating). Sample Episodes:3: Teaching Middle School Chess features NM Bryan Tillis of Florida. 4: Teaching High School Chess features Adam Porth of Idaho. Regularly check the USCF Upcoming Events for Chess Educators page to hear about future webinars. The next one is tomorrow, October 22, 2023 at 8pm Eastern time. Topic: Teaching Chess in St. Louis, featuring Richard Pointer, Saint Louis Chess Club Scholastic Manager, Dr. Matthew Pepper, Education Researcher at Basis Policy Research, and Dr. Brian Kisida from the University of Missouri.

Found a great tool to teach basic chess tactics to beginning middle and high schoolers. I knew about Chessable already, and it's aimed at more advanced players. It's forte is helping intermediate and advanced players memorize openings. On a scholastic level, most coaches agree that sheer memorization of openings is not the best use of time to help improve your game (for beginners), and in fact I've had new students quit when/if they perceived improvement as requiring laborious study. Also, most of their offerings must be purchased. But I revisited Chessable and found a gem. The course "Typical Tactical Tricks: 500 Ways to Win!" is free and teaches basic tactics with a short intro, then a series of not-too-hard puzzles to solve. I appreciate the length of each chapter also -- not too long, not too short. Here's the index: Intro Easy Piece-y (capture unprotected pieces) More Easy Piece-y (capture stronger pieces with weaker ones) Double Attacks Pins and Skewers Discovered Attack Checkmate Patterns Elimination of the Defence Trapping Mix I tell students they can skip the Easy Piece-y units if they're too easy (because they are very easy).Chessable can be played on their smart phone app (great for many students), or their website, and if you log-in, it'll remember your progress between both platforms. Minor quibbles: 1. It can be tricky to find the Chapter index. 2. The "Checkmate Patterns" title is inaccurate. It's good mate practice, but the positions are not necessarily the most common mate patterns. Chessable link: https://www.chessable.com Link to Typical Tactical Tricks: https://www.chessable.com/course/77784 (have to create account and log-in to Chessable first) Chessable app: (search it up on your phone) If you use it, let me know how it goes in your experience, and what your students think. Thanks!

I've been running a chess club at my high school for most of the last year. I have a small group who regularly turn up to play games at lunch time. I'm wondering how to step things up a bit in terms of doing some chess teaching or just adding more variety to keep their interest. It's hard because we pretty much only have 20 minutes of solid chess time available once people turn up etc. Any advice or resources welcome

Here's the blurbs I have on two webinars coming up. Have enjoyed both organizations' webinars in the past. SUNDAY, APRIL 16, 2023, 3pm EST (Noon Pacific time) Webinar: How to employ ChessKid.com to teach chess to middle and high school students. Sponsor: ChessKid.com. Presenter: Coach Dakim. RSVP at the botton of the article here. SUNDAY APRIL 30, 2023, 8pm EST (5pm Pacific time) Webinar: "Large or small, Your School Chess Program Can Be Successful and Celebrate the Players Too." Presenter: US Chess' Chess in Education Committee. This month's webinar features Ursula Byrd, Detroit Public Schools music teacher, and Christina Mullinax, Lenoir City School, TN, math and computer science teacher. Register here to participate.

Hi all, just attended the monthly USCF Chess and Education seminar. Great stuff -- next one is March 26, 2023, 8pm Eastern. To get info on these, bookmark and visit this page monthly: https://new.uschess.org/category/education One element of the discussion was earning high school letters (think lettermen jackets). I mentioned that it's good to confer with your high school's athletics-activities director on this. In my case (Ferndale High School, Washington state), I submitted the criteria for what it takes to earn a letter. So now if a student earns a letter, if it's their first letter, the school gives them the huge "F" for their jacket, with a certificate. If they've lettered in other sports, then just the certificate is given, and the student is authorized to get themselves the chenille chess patch and stripe. Someone asked to see the Ferndale HS lettering criteria, so I list it below. It's changed through the years. Lettering It's possible, but it must be earned. A Ferndale High School chessplayer shall have earned a Chess Letter if the following requirements are fulfilled: 1.Player has attended all league matches. 2.Player has played at least one game on Varsity OR achieved a rating over 1200. (Excused absences acceptable, but additional qualifying criteria will be instituted at the discretion of the advisor and Chess Club officers.) 3.Player has attended at least 50% of weekly club meetings from November through February. 4.Player has attended the State Team Championships. 5.Player has read one chess book, and has submitted a short report on it. 6.Player has submitted at least one annotated chess game to coach for publication, or published it online. (Note: Volunteer coaching/teaching at a FSD elementary school chess club counts towards attendance.) Requirements are to be fulfilled before April.

I may have an opportunity to purchase 30 consumable workbooks for our library club which has kids ranging from beginner skills to intermediate (rating around 1200 to 1400). Any recommendations for a good not too expensive consumable workbook ? Thinking of weekly assignments and small rewards for doing so. Maybe it is a book that we use over a few years. Any experience in this area? The difficulty we face is a wide range of levels and maturity from 8 to 18. A couple of our parents have asked for weekly work sheets but the mentors are thinking a workbook would be a better long term tool for the players(thinking about sheets that get lost vs. a book one might keep).

In the Chess.com "For Beginners: forum, I stumbled across two excellent resources. Each is a series of videos where you can hear the chess master explain every move they make, and what they're thinking while they're playing. John Bartholomew's "Climbing the Rating Ladder" seriesGM Daniel Naroditsky's "Chess Speed Run" series One of the comments in another thread tipped me off to the above resources, here's the comment, to which I agree. I am in my 30s. Started playing chess 3 years ago - and bottomed out around 650 after a month of playing online. I'm now over 2000 - which isn't that high in the grand scheme of things, but not too bad considering where I started and how recent that was. Point is, I wouldn't put too much weight on age being a determining factor in your chess improvement! It's mostly the amount of serious time you can commit to, for adult learners.If you can find the time to commit an hour or two to chess every day - an expert level is definitely within realistic reach within a few years. It's just about prioritizing your study to make for the best use of your time.For me, it was Tactics (I've did 20,000+ puzzles), Endgames, Game Analysis and middle game planning - largely in that order. Too many people waste valuable hours learning things that are abstract or not that common. Those areas should give you the best bang for buck.I'd also highly recommend "John Bartholomew's Climbing the Rating Ladder" series on youtube, as well as Daniel Naroditsky's chess speed run series. Both are very insightful and I improved from 1100-1200 over two days just by changing my 'thought process' to what I was seeing in those videos back when I was newer to the game. To the above video resources, I'd add Robert Ramirez' "Free Chess Lessons" videos. Seven levels, 10 lessons each, that's 70 chess lessons, at https://www.chesslessonswithrobert.com/free-chess-lessons .

Here's a link to a PDF file (36MB) which is a set of chess handouts "Top Ten Tactical Tricks". I created these awhile back, and use them every year. It's 8.5 x 11, so you can make copies copyright free (just don't sell them). You can hand out one tactic per week, or a clump at a time, or give the whole batch out like a book. Sometimes I'll hand out the first nine tactics, with the teaser "I'll give you the tenth tactic ['Atom Bomb'] when you've completed the first nine." The tenth tactic handout is indeed markedly different, larger, and perhaps not as vital or engaging as the first nine (6 pages, instead of 1 or 2) so it's a good demarcation. Another handout that might be useful -- a list I've developed of things that beginning tournament chessplayers should know. Chess Basic Training Checklist (it should all fit on one page) Chess Basic Training Checklist teacher's guide

Just discovered a great set of videos from NM Robert Ramirez. 70 video lessons to take players from Beginner to Club player. Yes, you heard me right -- free. Seven levels, with 10 lessons each. Level One starts with "The chess pieces and the board." https://www.chesslessonswithrobert.com/free-chess-lessons

Am starting up a few elementary school (2nd-5th grade) chess clubs this Fall. Need to select a chess CLM system. Has anyone published their comparisons between the scholastic teaching tools and classroom (club) management offerings of Chessity, Chesskid, Chess4Life, Chessable, ChessMagnetSchool, Zoomchess, LiChess, LearningChess, etc? A side-by-side comparison? Anywhere?

Jay Stallings is respected nationwide, and has developed his own materials. This website provides non-proprietary resources -- here's the link to the "Coaching Materials" page: http://chesscoachresource.com/road-to-improvement/

Hello all, Some of you may be familiar with The Usborne Complete Book of Chess. More than one of my kids found this book very helpful and really enjoyed it. The accompanying website has some good pdf of puzzles on a variety of themes on one sheet. They are well worth a look.. Chess puzzles mixed themes

Hi all, just got this in my email this morning. Have used Chessity before, good material. School closure? Learn chess for free with Chessity With the widespread closure of schools due to the coronavirus, Chessity temporarily opens up their family accounts free of charge for three weeks. Chess is fun, educational and super beneficial for child development. With Chessity your child builds future skills in a playful way. Chessity is used by over 1.750 schools. Now that more and more schools are closing, Chessity wants to give as many children as possible the chance to learn chess at home. That is why the popular Diploma Challenge is available free of charge for families until 6 April. In this way we try to do our bit in this difficult and pretty overwhelming time. In three weeks time, your children will learn chess, play online kids' tournaments, and they can even get a real chess diploma! Let your kids join in, too. Sign them up here: Yes, my children want to learn chess Feel free to share this email with others. You'll help us help more families:

Years ago for my students, I indexed the simplest YouTube openings videos aimed at post-beginners who were ready to be introduced to specific openings. And by ready, I mean they were ready in skill level (drilled in opening general principles, adequate and improving in tactics and endgames), and ready in attitude (not being force fed, but hungry to learn!) Most of these are from Kevin at The Chess Website, but several are from other sources also. I've copied and pasted the content below, but my original page has better formatting. I haven't updated it in awhile, so there may be dead links. If you can recommend other quality free opening introduction videos, feel free to link to them in the comments. 1.e4 e5 -- 1.e4 other -- 1.d4 d5 -- 1.d4 other -- Flank Openings Welcome to the Openings Explorer! Online videos are an effective way to learn a new opening. It's like having a private lesson with a chess coach. This page is intended for chess players who are progressing beyond novice phase (rated over 1200), who know the general opening principles, and who are ready to enjoy the process of trying out new opening repertoires. Have a blast! I've done a lot of screening and filtering so you won't have to. IMHO, these are the best free videos on the web for introducing chess novices to a new opening. Watch the video, and then try it out! Try out several! Some ideas on how to use this page to maximum effect: Two handy tools to use when watching: the "Pause" button, and the "Enlarge Screen" button. Feel free to take notes. If you'd like to read and/or print out a useful synopsis of an opening, go to Wikipedia and type in the name of the opening. Double King Pawn Openings: 1 e4 e5 King's Gambit pt1 pt2 1 e4 e5 2 f4 King's Gambit: Falkbeer Counter-Gambit 1 e4 e5 2 f4 d5 Vienna Game and Gambit 1 e4 e5 2 Nc3 Center Game 1 e4 e5 2 d4 Danish Gambit (or Danish Gambit by jrobi) 1 e4 e5 2 d4 exd4 3 c3 Urusov Gambit pt1 pt2 pt3 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 d4 Boden's Gambit 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 Nf3 Latvian Gambit 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 f5 Petroff Defense 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6 Philidor Defense pt1 pt2 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d6 Ponziani Opening (also Ponziani Opening in depth) 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 c3 Four Knights' Game: Halloween Gambit 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Nxe5 Four Knights' Game: The Fork Trick 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bc4 Scotch Opening 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 Scotch Gambit pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 exd4 4 Bc4 Ruy Lopez 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Guioco Piano 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 Evans Gambit pt1 pt2 (or Evans Gambit by jrobi) 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 b4 Two Knights Defense: Fried Liver Attack 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 d5 5 exd5 Nxd5 6 Nxf7 Two Knights Defense: Lolli Attack 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 d5 5 exd5 Nxd5 6 d4 Two Knights Defense: Ulvestad Counter Attack 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 d5 5 exd5 b5 Two Knights Defense: Traxler Counter Attack 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 Bc5 Two Knights Defense: Max Lange Attack pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 d4 Single King Pawn Openings: 1 e4 other Sicilian Defense 1 e4 c5 Sicilian Defense: Dragon Variation 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 g6 Sicilian Defense: Smith Morra Gambit pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 1 e4 c5 2 d4 cxd4 3 c3 French Defense pt1 pt2 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 Caro-Kann Defense 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 Scandinavian Defense (or Scandinavian Defense by jrobi) 1 e4 d5 Alekhine's Defense (or Alekhine's Defense by jrobi) 1 e4 Nf6 Pirc Defense 1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 g6 Pribyl (Czech) Defense 1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 c6 Modern Defense pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 pt5 1 e4 g6 Double Queen Pawn Openings: 1 d4 d5 Queen's Gambit 1 d4 d5 2 c4 Queen's Gambit Accepted 1 d4 d5 2 c4 dxc4 Queen's Gambit: Tarrasch Defense 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 c5 Albin Counter Gambit 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e5 Slav Defense 1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 Semi-Slav Defense 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Nf3 c6 London System pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 1 d4 d5 2 Bf4 Colle-Zukertort System 1 d4 2 Nf3 3 e3 4 Bd3 5 O-O 6 b3 Veresov Attack 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 Bg5 Queen Bishop's Attack 1 d4 d5 2 Bg5 Blackmar-Diemer Gambit 1 d4 d5 2 e4 Blackmar-Diemer Gambit: Halosar Trap 1 d4 d5 2 e4 dxd4 3 f3 exf3 4 Qxf3 Single Queen Pawn Openings: 1 d4 other Nimzo-Indian Defense 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Bb4 Queen's Indian Defense 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 b6 Bogo-Indian Defense 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 Nf3 Bb4+ King's Indian Defense 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 Grunfeld Defense 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 d5 Benoni Defense (or Benoni Defense by jrobi) 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 Benko Gambit 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 b5 Budapest Gambit 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5 Dutch Defense 1 d4 f5 Dutch Defense: Stonewall 1 d4 f5 2 g3 Nf6 3 Bg2 e6 4 Nf3 d5 Flank Openings English Opening 1 c4 English Opening: Botvinnik System 1 c4 2 g3 3 Bg2 4 Nc3 5 e4 Reti Opening (or Reti Opening by jrobi) 1 Nf3 Bird's Opening 1 f4 Orangutang pt1 pt2 pt3 pt4 1 b4 King's Indian Attack 1 Nf3 2 g3 3 Bg2 4 0-0 5 d3 6 e4 .