From 0 To Tournament-Ready

My name is Rob Lazorchak, and I've been a chess teacher and coach for seven years. I taught many students in the greater Washington, D.C. area, but am now beginning my second year teaching chess at Success Academies Charter Schools in New York. At Success, every child has chess class once a week, and we also have a chess team that practices after school on Wednesdays! My work week is Tuesday-Saturday, which allows me to take the team to tournaments on the weekends.

This year I am at a new school within the Success Academy network, and want to share our journey with you. Today, I am writing about how our brand-new chess team of second and third graders got tournament-ready in only two practices.

Assuming your students already know the basic rules, what should you teach next? There are countless topics and lessons that have value, but there isn't time for them all. So how should you prioritize? At Success Academy we decided to focus on tournament rules and etiquette, basic mating patterns, and scholar's mate. Here's why:

1) Tournament rules and etiquette: This one seems simple enough, but covers a whole lot of material. Students need to know the rules and how to enforce them with the help of a tournament director. Just as important, but more difficult, is instilling the discipline your students need to take accurate notation (especially in conjunction with using the clock). Not only will these be used as evidence in a player dispute, but they are worth their weight in gold for analysis. I also included etiquette in here, as it is never too early to teach good habits and sportsmanship.

2) Basic mating patterns: If your students are new to tournaments they are most likely still in "take no prisoners" mode and are just gobbling up as much material as they can. Teaching them basic queen-and-king mates, and the ladder mate will turn many of those stalemates into full points.

3) Scholar's mate: The lesson focuses more on the defense than the attack itself, and I teach this for a few reasons. The most obvious one is that I don't want my students to lose in four moves, but it has the ancillary benefit of my students playing longer, more competitive games that can be analyzed in greater depth. The lesson also provides a miniscule amount of opening theory which gives me a peak into my student's ability to recall and apply information.

I didn't have time to cover this before our first event, but if time permits I would have gone over:

4) Opening principles: Controlling the center (personally, I like to use the midfielder in soccer as an analogy to pieces in the middle), quick development, and castling are all a coach needs to emphasize for the budding chess player. I usually follow it up with asking my students their favorite first moves, and as a class we examine them through the lens of the three principles listed above.

Checkmating patterns were the focus of our first meeting, and scholar's mate got a lot of attention during the second practice. Tournament rules and etiquette straddled both sessions, and I made sure to end each practice with a g/20 in which we simulated tournament conditions. In addition to a set number of tactics puzzles, I also assigned relevant ChessKid videos that complemented what we covered each day.

If you are pressed for time and want to ramp your students up as quickly as possible these are the must-have teaching points in my opinion. Best of luck at your first tournament!