What Does a Kid Need To Know To Play in a Chess Tournament?

Hi Everyone!

My weekly column is changing: Previously I had been showing famous games for young chess players; Now my column will focus on advice and lessons that chess coaches and/or parents can use in their quests to help their children learn and master the game of chess! Kids can still read my column of course -- but it is now being written more for adults. In some of the articles I will be answering questions from readers. This week I will be answering the following question:

Mark, Chess Parent, North Carolina: What is the difference between "tactical" and "positional" chess, and is this something my "chesskid" needs to understand before playing in a tournament?

Good question! Those "terms" (tacitcal and positional) get thrown around a lot -- without ever getting proper explanation. Often, parents will fear their child is lacking in one area or another -- and the parent doesn't even fully understand the difference between the two ...

Basically, tactical chess deals with details, such as small maneuvers , attacks on the pieces, defense of a piece, checks on the king, checkmate threats, and so on. Positional chess deals with long-term things, such as weak or strong pawns, important strategic outposts, good and bad pawns, or "well-or badly-placed" pieces. Let me show an example from one of my games:

Black has just moved his pawn to a6, attacking my knight. This is a threat or a tactic. He wants to drive my knight back to a3 or c3, where it is less active (positional play).

Instead of moving my knight back, I played the move 14.fxe5, counterattacking his bishop on f6 (tactics). After he took back with the bishop 14...Bxe5, I was able to safely move my knight to d4 by 15.Nd4. Why did I want this? Because from d4 my knight can jump in to the e6 square, where it is very active and bothers my opponent (the ourpost square on e6 is a positional weakness because it can't be attacked by pawns).

So as you can see, to play good chess you have to use both tactics and positional play. Usually positional play is your ultimate goal/strategy, while tactical play is how you achieve it.

Now, does a "chesskid" need to know this to play in tournaments? I would say "no". To play in tournaments, a kid needs to know these things:

1. The rules of chess. Especially how the pieces move, the touch move rule, and (usually) how to operate a chess clock. In some tournaments kids might need to know how to keep score, but usually not, especially in most scholastic tournaments.

2. Most importantly: good sportsmanship and manners!

To play in a tournament, kids do not need to know the difference between tactical and positional chess, how to play the Caro-Kann opening, or even the value of the pieces -- so Relax chess parents!  These are not part of the rules of chess - they are the strategies of chess and things your child will learn as he/she gains experience. That said, knowing these strategies would help a kid to do better in the tournament!

I hope this answers your question.