Judit Polgar's Chess Playground in Review!

These days, there is no shortage of "educational" mobile apps for parents to choose from. As a parent, I speak from personal experience when I say it can be a real challenge to find something educational (whether it be centered around chess or otherwise) yet still entertaining enough to fully captivate my children.

I have tried almost all of the chess-related apps (so have my kids), and I can honestly say that Judit Polgar's Chess Playground offers something original, entertaining, and "colorful" enough to keep my kids engaged throughout the learning process! 

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The original videos - served up as intros to each lesson - describe the movements of each piece with an original and playful "backstory." These stories are accompanied by a "welcome" video segment from Judit herself, and feature beautiful, vibrant and captivating animation. I must admit that at first, the highly original stylings of the pieces themselves was so different, I had a hard time believing my kids would "recognize" the pieces. However, when I put this theory to the test, even my 4-yr-old (after watching the intro videos) remembered and knew which piece he was learning. I attribute this to the great intro videos/stories!

GM Polgar's fun approach to why each piece has the power it does (for instance, explaining that the king being "old and slightly lazy") kept me and my kids focused on the videos. This focus gives my kids a fighting chance to learn the game of chess, and in the case of my 7-yr-old, there is enough real chess substance to help him go beyond learning how the pieces move, to improve his game with checkmate puzzles.

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Speaking of real chess substance, I wanted to highlight three major things Polgar's App does better than its competitors. I am now speaking as an experienced International Master and chess teacher, not as a parent...

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• First, I love the way the app starts off with "learning the board" and its coordinates. This step is highly critical, in order to make sure a young player can truly follow the instruction being given, and is often skipped by many chess apps geared towards kids. I believe teaching the "language of chess" and familiarizing kids with the "battlefield" is absolutely vital (a solid "Soviet Method" if I don't say so myself) but is often rushed by coaches

• As Judit highlights in her video here on ChessKid.com - the slow progression of "adding pieces to capture" one at a time (the knight example used in the video) is great; it demonstrates how all children should be taught the movements of any piece! Furthermore, when she gets to the end of how the knight moves, there is a pawn "strategically placed" just out of reach of the Knight's capture (on d2). This, as much as anything, helped my 4-yr-old learn what the knight can't do! Super important and a genius move! In my opinion, this type of teaching method (i.e. putting pieces just out of reach of a piece, instead of only teaching by captures) should be used more often!

• Finally, the checkmate puzzles provide a "symmetry" in that each position is both white and black to move and checkmate. This is very important when helping kids to pick up "pattern recognition" at a young age, AND it subconsciously teaches them to look at the entire board - instead of just one area where the enemy king is placed. It's an amazingly instructive method that many coaches never considered!

In the end, I highly recommend Judit Polgar's Chess Playground to any and all parents/coaches looking for another great, interactive way to keep their kids "playing" something educational on their tablets and smartphone devices. Reviewing this app was fun and fulfilling for both me and my kids.

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Please mark your calendars for GM Judit Polgar's LIVE Question and Answer session on Chess.com/TV - March 31st at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern - with IM Danny Rensch. Judit will be answering questions regarding her app, her new book, and her career in general!