Teaching Kids How To Play Chess

Whats the best way to show my children how to play chess?

9 and 8

Thats a good question! I have a 3 year old who likes to do what daddy does. He loves to set up the board in crazy patterns but doesnt like when I try to get him to keep a bishop just on one color or pawns only going straight ahead. He loves to make captures though! Just like meeee. I am curious how to proceed.

they want to get better and i dont know what to do to get them better at chess they like playing chess

Hi and I am a 12 year old! I learnt chess from my father... before I remembered anything... My first memory was being brought to school in a car, and I knew chess before that. When I was 7, I was taught chess in school, and because I already knew about chess I was interested in learning chess...

Step 1: Gain their interest.

I was first told that the chessboard is made out of 64 black and white squares and that different pieces move differently! Before I was taught about the starting position, my teacher set up mad but simple positions and told us how each piece moves...

Step 2: Tell them HOW to play the game.

Then I was told about the strength of each piece and why they are there in the part of the initial position. Such as "The rook is a very strong piece, so it is placed in the corners! If they were at the center, they can easily capture all the pieces!"

Step 3: Tell them how the game starts.

Suddenly a small genius came up and said "I want to try something! Please can I?"

This was the position.

"How does the white king move! The next move he would be captured!"

The teacher then told us if the king would be captured in the next move NO MATTER WHAT, it means that its a win! Black wins!

Step 4: Tell them about checkmates, draws, and maybe stalemates.

Afterwards, we all took a turn to play against the teacher! He defeated us easily!

Step 5: Spark them by defeating them all in a game of chess and have fun!

And now I'm here, learning chess!

A common psychology of most youngsters is, they get encouraged only if they win at something! I remember one of my school friends who joined the same college as I. He was only mildly interested in ping-pong/table-tennis while in school, but when he came to college, in the very first day he defeated the college#1! Thenceforth he became madly interested in the game!

My granddad taught us chess, but kept us interested by intentionally playing badly against us!

I remember of an interesting and instructive anecdote about my granddad that I heard from my dad:

An old man regularly came and played with my grandad. Once my granddad was not in, and he invited my dad (then an youngster) to play with him. That guy lost miserably to my dad. Afterwards when my granddad heard of it, he exclaimed, "What have you done! He will never come again to play chess!" And he was proved correct!

thats cool but how do you get the best out of they rhinking ability

Do you want your kid to become a master?

A point that is often missed is that - to reach masters level one must acquire the ability to visualise the whole board with eyes closed (otherwise calculations many plys deep is simply impossible).

The kids can be gradually taught this in a fun way by showing them a simple position (starting with 2-3 pieces, gradually increasing), and asking them to reproduce those positions immediately from memory (each success gets 1 point, and 5 points gets an ice-cream, etc.)

To gradually enable them to think in chess is to start them with one-move, simple problems featuring all the tactical themes (checkmate, various types of checks, [pins, forks, discovered attacks, etc.) When they get expert at one-movers, go for two-movers. (easy ones of course). And so on.

thats what up

fa sho

I'm an elementary school band teacher and play chess with 4th-6th graders every day. When I bought a chess clock the game became much more exciting for them. They love the clock and I set it to 5 minute blitz. I dial my playing strength down to give them a chance to win and even  let each of them win at least once.

When a child checkmates an adult , it's like nirvana to them. From that moment on, they are totally addicted to the game. They won't leave me alone, always bugging me for a match.

One more thing - for the absolute beginner - get them started by playing copycat until most of the pieces are developed without any captures. Then let them have fun capturing pieces. They catch on extremely fast.

Below is an example of how I start a game for the absolute beginner, including one of my daughters just a few months ago. I hope this helps.

nice one

sorry if my experience didn't help, but in the end 2/3 of my class started playing chess really seriously, even after being beaten by the teacher. maybe this might help YOU (not me)

Step 6: Get them to play with each other.

Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, and they naturally get interested as they want to beat each other.

Wow...those children will really be masters in minutes...wait till they beat you, HotFlow.

Check out my son schooling him mom on the fundamentals of chess.

http://www.chess.com/video/view/a-child-shall-lead-them

Not to brag, but my son Elijah is exceptionally smart. He's certainly smarter than I was at his age. After I taught Elijah how the pieces move and how the game started, here's how I went:

- I taught him the point values for the pieces. This actually helped him ace addition in preschool faster than the other children. I would allow him to capture my pieces during games and ask "How many points do you have?" which would force him to add.

- I felt it may be a little overwhelming to try playing with all of the pieces on the board, so we would play games with only three pieces on the board: the black king on the 8th rank, and both the white king and queen on the 1st rank. I'd play a few games as white checkmating him, and then we would switch sides so he could do to me what I did to him. After a while, I would switch the queen with a rook. This taught him what checkmate looks like and that pieces have to work together.

- The next thing we did actually helped me more than Elijah, and I would recommend EVERYONE to try this out for a while. I would clear the board of all pieces except for a knight. I would put the knight on one square and point to another square asking "How can you get your knight here?" or "What's the least amount of moves it would take to get your knight from here to there?" This forced him to visualize and think several moves ahead. Gradually, I would add obstacles of enemy pawns to avoid. "Elijah, I want you to get your knight here without putting him on a square where he can be captured." I was amazed at how helpful this was for him.

- The most important thing I had to remember is this: my son wants my undivided attention so he can show me what he's got. He's not so much interested in becoming a grandmaster; he just wants to spend some quality one-on-one time with daddy.

I've been wondering about when to start teaching my daughter. She's a bit too young yet, 5 in Feb, but I've shown her how some pieces move on the iPhone. She always wants to know what I'm doing.

cool..

My 5 year old nephew was having trouble understanding the knight move, which from my experience in the past had been a frustrating ordeal to teach. I had a breakthrough though. I had him marching around the house like a knight. We would put one foot forward and shout "One!" Then another foot forward shouting "Two!" Then  I would shout, "Turn!" And I would ask him if he wanted to turn left or right, and he would decide. It was fun and we practiced this, marching backwards also with the same idea. When he went back to the board he was able to manoever the knight correctly with the vocal prompting, "One, Two, Turn!"

My five year old daughter has a great chess opening. 

A couple of months ago I sat down with her and patiently set out to teach her the great game that is chess. 

Ten minutes in and I had named all of the pieces and showed her how they move as she sat rapt.  She had chosen to be white and the board was set up and ready to go. 

I was just beginning the explanation of en passant when she lifted up her end of the board and shouted "Charge!".

I've only just let her out of the cellar.

Resurrecting an old thread here...

My son is 4 years old and is rather bright for his age.  I've only just started studying and playing "serious" chess myself, and he is very interested in what I'm doing.  I've sat down with him for 15 minutes at a time or so, and after just a few sessions, he knows the names of all the pieces and can set up the board by himself (occasionally switching the king and queen, but he's catching on).  It's really surprising how fast kids pick this stuff up.

I like some of the tips posted here.  Especially the one about acting out the knight's movements.  Parts of my house have large tiles, which would be perfect for that!