Learning How to Play Chess from Scratch

From HultWiki

Learning the Essentials

Learning the basics of the game should be done before the child joins Hult. However, if the child has interest, we will still take him at Hult and help teaching the move essentials, although the learning will take longer than learning in a home environment.

Ideally Children should learn the game at home from parents of older siblings. When a family member shows interest in the game and the child's learning, the child interest is raised and he learns more easily. A child can begin this process as young as 3 years old.

The first step is to learn how to set up the board without the pieces. The white square on the right hand quarter. It is important to set the board correctly because much of the game relates to the colors of the squares.

The player of the White pieces will sit on the side labeled by low numbered squares and the player of the Black pieces will sit on the side labeled by the high numbered squares. Ranks are the rows of squares from left to right. The files are the rows of squares that go fromone side of the board to the other. Use the words rank and file as they will become part of his chess vocabulary. Being comfortable with the chess board will later help the student understand grids, maps and multiplication.

Second, show your child how to identify each piece by name and where to place them before the start of the game. The larger pieces all go on the back ranks at the edge of the board. The pawns go on the rank just in front of the pieces.

Rooks (castles) go in the corners. Knights (horses) go one square toward the center from the Rooks, Bishops (the pointy pieces with a slash cutout on their top) go next to the Knights. Finally the King (cross on top) and the Queen (crown with points around the edge on top) go on the last two squares. The Queen always goes on its own color - White Queen on a white square, Black Queen on a black square. The King always goes on the opposite color - White King on a Black square, Black King on a White square.

Next, teach your child how each piece moves and how they capture. Start with the Rooks - their moves are the easiest to understand. Then the King, Bishop, and Queen. Show the Knight last of the pieces, since its move is more confusing. The description of an L-shaped move seems to work well for the Knight. It can also be shown as making a one square Rook move and then a one square Bishop move, pointing out that both moves are moving away from the starting square. The important thing is to show the moves, your child will learn visually much faster by seeing and doing.

After showing the piece moves, show them the pawn moves. Be sure to emphasize that each pawn can move 1 or 2 squares on the first move, not just on the players first move.

Leave out castling, en passant, and pawn promotion. Introduce those moves later as special moves once your child can play a game.

Ready to Starting Playing

Now your child knows enough to start playing.

At first the goal is to capture pieces. Don't worry about the King or check, treat it as a regular piece and play until your child has taken all your pieces. Let him learn the joy of capturing all your pieces and winning a game.

You need to play at least a couple of dozen games with your child capturing at will so they will get the hand of it.

Next, introduce the idea that the goal of the game is win the King and no longer to take all the pieces, although it was once a way to win the game during the middle ages. Let him learn to "take" your King and win the game. Eventually you will tell him that in tournament chess the King is not taken but the game is stopped at that point as Checkmate.

Finally we need to teach how to checkmate using King and 2 Rooks vs King, King & Queen vs King and King & one Rook vs King. It takes practice, but it lets the player know that he can force checkmate after winning sufficient material.

Time for More Serious Play

Joining Hult. It is at this point that most children begin joining Hult and playing with other children of their own age and level. Our beginning section has frequent short lessons, both as a group and individually. These lessons will reinforce what you have been teaching and begin to introduce tactics.

The next idea to introduce is that of protecting pieces. Show him to take the unprotected pieces. Take back when he captures a protected piece to show him to take the free ones instead. Be sure to leave plenty of free pieces for him to take as he learns.

This is the first stage where your child actually begins to learn to analyze by differentiating between free and protected pieces. This takes plenty of practice to not only learn the concept of which move is better for him but also practice in seeing the free pieces. In early grades most games are determined by who picks up the most free pieces.

Use a computer as a learning aid. You can download a free copy of Chessbase 9 to help with practice. If you use Chessbase or another computer program that accepts .PGN files, download our freepieces.pgn file from the Download section of the community portal page to practice on your computer.

Tactics. From here you will start to introduce tactical themes. Time the introduction so that your child has time to digest each theme before the next is presented. Tactics include double attack, pins, forks, removing the protection, skewers, discovered attack, double attack and more. We have files ready to download to enable your child to practice with the computer.

A child who can reliably find these tactics on his own, will win games in K-3 tournament play and have a chance for a trophy or medal.

Endgames. After, or often concurrently with tactical play, your child should begin to learn how to play the basic endgames.

Teach him "opposition" by playing King vs King. Start with his King on the back row and your King a few rows back. If he can get King to the far side, he wins. It is amazing how quickly children pickup the concept of opposition by doing this way. Many adult club players don't understand opposition.

Another side game to help to begin to teach endings is to place the Kings in the corners across from each other. The child goes first and must move is King to the far corner on the other side of the board. This teaches distance opposition and outflanking.

While we have a wonderful vocabulary for all these basic concepts, the ideas are simple when learned by doing this way. My beginning 5 and 6 year old students beat me every time.

While we practice tactics and opposition and other concepts, the student must never stop playing. Playing is fun, the kids love to win, and it helps them understand how all the various things they are taught fit together.

Position. Position elements must also be introduced. We discuss where each piece can have his maximum effect.

Rooks need open files to penetrate the opponents position.

Bishops need long open diagonals and targets to hit at the other end.

Knights need outposts near the center or opposing King where they can be safe from attack by harassing pawns.

Kings and Queens need to stay safely back until the game opens up. Once the Queen can find safe squares in the center, she can have a profound affect on the game. Once the Queens are traded off the Kings can come out and help control the endgame.

We also need to look at pawn structure. Andre Philidor, the worlds strongest player in the 1700s, said that pawns are the soul of chess. Indeed, if you can read the pawn structure you will always know where to play.

So we must learn about where to play our pawns and the troubles pawn weaknesses can cause. Isolated pawns, doubled pawns, backward pawns are only some of the better known pawn weaknesses. The square directly in front of a pawn is weak unless he has a buddy to help guard it.

A Real Chess Player

At this point your child has become a chess player. He knows a lot about the game, and if he is still interested in learning more he should be attending our workshops, possibly taking private lessons, and certainly playing in tournaments. Remember that to excel at anything, to become among the best, it takes practice and it doesn't matter whether it's baseball, dance or playing a musical instrument. It's the same with chess.

Chess is a great game - it teaches so much more than just how to win a game. Chess develops self-esteem, builds confidence, and increases concentration. Kids who play chess learn to focus for an extended period of time, and will analyze situations to predict an outcome. They learn that what they do has consequences, both good and bad.

Chess encourages students to discover patterns and use logical deductive reasoning to solve problems. This is Ideal behavior to improve test taking in school.

Visit Research and Benefits of Chess on the community portal page for more on the advantages of playing chess.