Puzzles By Theme: 2 Useful Tips!

Hello Coaches and Parents!

We all have students, and groups of students who struggle with the new material we teach them each week. Tactics are the foundation of chess, and the developing player needs to solve hundreds and thousands of puzzles to build their pattern recognition and intuition.

Here are two quick tips coaches and parents can using the "Chess Puzzles By Theme" feature on www.chesskid.com to enhance the learning process. 

1. Tournament Games - After reviewing your students tournament games you might notice that several of them are missing f2/f7 tactics that occur in the different Italian opening positions. Go to puzzles, click on theme, and go to Attacking f7/f2. Now your students can solve puzzles that focus only on this one pattern.

Note: for those coaches who give assignments in Club News, be sure to share the link which numbers the themes. For example: https://www.chesskid.com/puzzles/server.html?theme=1 would direct the student to the Attacking f7/f2 puzzle theme problems.

2. Lessons - When you introduce new material to students the best way for them to really understand the concepts is to reinforce the ideas outside of the classroom. The Chess Puzzles By Theme feature allows your students to practice one idea that you covered in class until they have a good grasp of the patterns.

The students can solve these puzzles at their own individual pace between classes. This can be especially helpful when you start covering more advanced tactical ideas.

Just make sure that your students understand how to access the Chess Puzzles By Theme section on chesskid.com. A great way is just to tell them there are 3 steps (or share this article!):

1. Learn + Puzzles                     2. Select Themes               3. Choose A Theme

         

Your students will enjoy solving puzzles by themes, and will start demonstrating these tactics in their tournament games! Good Luck!