How would you teach chess?

[llareggub]

I have a feeling my 4 year old would enjoy chess. I can play but have no recollection of how I was taught, or how old I was.

How would you go about teaching the game? Just play and explain the rules as you go along?

I don't really want to use a computer to teach him. I'd prefer to use a real chess set as his younger brother takes up quite a bit of time and I think some one to one time would be beneficial for him.

Just play as you go along. Tell him what each piece can do a you play. Tell him the aim and that each piece has certain limitations.

Good point about limitations, I wouldn't have thought of that.

Four is a good age. Most four year olds can learn to play chess if they are interested (big if! many aren't interested yet).

In my experience it is a bad idea to have too much going on at once. Many people sort-of know the rules of chess and never quite get ALL of them because there is so much happening on the board.

Here's how I teach it, whatever the age. Introduce one piece at a time, starting with the ones which move in the simplest way. Something like rook, bishop, queen, knight, pawn, king.

Show your son how the rook moves on an empty chessboard. Then put a rook of each colour on the board to get him used to taking turns. Show him how to capture and explain that the piece is off the board for good once it is captured. Eventually move on to two rooks of each colour and get him to try to capture both of yours before you capture his.

Do the same with the bishop. Then use bishop and rook at the same time. There is quite a lot to think about with just two rooks and two bishops each!

Introduce each piece in turn in this way, having little "games" in which the last person with a piece remaining on the board is the winner. Capturing the most pieces isn't the object of the game but it usually helps! Ask him which pieces he likes best and why. It won't take him long to discover that some pieces are more powerful than others.

Check, checkmate and stalemate can be difficult concepts so again, keep it simple. Demonstrating these with just rooks and kings on the board makes it easier.

Here are a few things to note.

Four year olds can usually learn chess if they are keen, and can even progress to quite advanced theory. However, the younger the child, the slower the whole process is. A ten year old might master all the rules of the game in just a couple of sessions, but a four year old may take fifteen sessions to achieve the same.

Many young kids enjoy the fantasy element of chess and like to create their own rules. If this is your son's agenda, let him play with the pieces in whatever way he likes. He won't enjoy chess if he's made to stick to standard rules when he doesn't want to. One day he will want to use the standard rules in order to be able to play against other people. Often this happens around the age of seven, but some kids are willing to conform at a younger age. Personally I don't enjoy playing by kid-rules, and I usually refuse to do so by claiming that I might get confused. But that doesn't mean made-up rules are wrong for the child. I usually refer to the "standard" rules of chess rather than the "right" way to play.

Unlike card games, there is only one standard set of rules for chess. Don't let anyone tell your son otherwise. Many people are a bit muddled on some of the rules. (I hate the words "No, my dad says..." because you have to find a very gentle way to break it to the child that dad is mistaken!) Unless you yourself have played in a league or tournament, there are probably a few of the more obscure rules which you don't know, so at some stage brush up on these. It isn't too hard.

There is a developmental step change relating to the ability to follow a diagonal visually on the chess board. Most children will be able to do this by four, but it can develop as late as eight. If your child doesn't "get" diagonals readily then there is nothing you can do to teach it to him, you just have to wait. In the meantime you must accept that his bishops will stray constantly! One day the ability to see a diagonal will come suddenly.

That's all I can think of at the moment, but let me know if you have any other questions.

What really grabbed my ds was a Marvel superheroes chess set.

Ds was soon beating me hands down because I kept getting muddled up and plotting moves with his pieces because I didn't know my Silver Surfer from my Magneto or whatever.

DH says go for Staunton, and decent size pieces on a decent size board. It's a tactile experience after all.

He has until now just let them create merry hell with all the pieces, getting them to set them up first, and agrees that perhaps stripping it back a little so the board is not too crowded is a good idea.

Learning the pieces and imposing too much order will work with a few children but not many, he also says!

One of ours loves the sideswipe, the other the gather and hoard approach.

Mine was four. He found a set in a cupboard and kept dragging it out, until I said okay then. I'd say don't get too hung up on it, just get a set out and see if he's interested. If he is, then just set up a game. To keep enthusiasm going, I used to deliberately move pieces into danger, then say 'oh no' and help him see what piece he could take. It's an easy way to teach them the rules, but to let them feel as though they're really playing.

Thank you all for your advice. I've got a set somewhere in the garage so I will get it out, set it up and see if he is interested. No problem if he isn't!

Here's a link on how to win in 4 moves. Shown as a rap performed by a 10 year old -

We did draughts [drafts?] first.

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Ooh, I was only talking about this last night with DH! Definitely going to try some of this with DD1 - she loves board games, so chess shouldn't be too big a leap, and I used to love chess when I was little :)