Walk Before You Run

Hello students, parents, and coaches!

This is Paul Swaney, a.k.a. "ThinkAhead" on ChessKid, back with another article.

Every school year, thousands of chess programs resume, and our job as coaches is to find an effective way to reach all the students.

The danger as parents and coaches in our moments of excitement is to teach too much, too soon! I propose to take a slow approach so that the student can gain confidence moving the pieces and learning the rules. 

Below are two "mini-games" I like to use in my classes. This helps the students get a "feel" for the pieces in a slow way that they can enjoy. In future articles I will show some other popular "mini-games" that you can experiment with in your classes.

Remember to always make the learning fun, interactive, and at an appropriate pace for the students' level in order to keep them motivated and excited about chess.

Capture The Flag

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first example is probably the most popular: capture the flag!

The students can get a handle on all these rules by playing capture the flag!

The pawn, for many students, is the most tricky to learn because it has tons of movement rules:  

  1. Can only move forward
  2. Captures differently than it moves
  3. Can move one or two spaces on the first turn
  4. The en passant capture
  5. Pawn promotion.

There are three ways you can win capture the flag games:

  1. Get a pawn to the end of the board
  2. Capture all of your opponent's pawns
  3. Get to a position where your opponent cannot move, but you can!

Be sure to have them promote to a piece once they reach the end of the board to get used to the idea of promotion.

Tom And Jerry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second example I call Tom and Jerry! 

Tom the cat has to capture all the white mice! The queen is the most powerful piece in chess, and has super board mobility!

For students to get used to the awesome power of the queen, I like to take one black queen vs. all eight white pawns.

The object of the game is simple: capture all the pawns before one of the pawns reach the other side of the board.

If a pawn gets to the other side and the black queen can capture the pawn, I still count it as a victory for White.

The queen should be able to capture all eight pawns before one even reaches the other side.

Double attacks or forks are popular lessons to introduce when teaching ways to stop all eight pawns.

Make sure to give your students opportunities to practice these "mini-games" against one another.

Best of luck in all of your classes!