My 3rd grade grandson, referenced near the end of my web page, recently played in a city wide gifted students tournament run by the school system. What really surprised and disappointed me was how poor the overall level of play way (I was an assistant TD for the other sections). Some kids knew what they were doing but for most it was as if the teacher had said “Here are the sets and the rules that came with the sets. Now don’t bug me for the next 30 minutes,” and a number of kids did not even have a firm grasp of the rules, much less concepts as stopping a scholar’s mate, the center, or developing pieces.
I only got one chance for a cram session with my grandson, showing him the Morphy Opera Box and playing him a game where I opened … a6, Ra7-a8-a7 before playing normal moves and had him mated by move 28. He won his 2nd and 5th round games to go 2-3.
A while back, when I was in college, I’d help run some scholastic tournament, even some really big ones. They always stuck me with the little kids.
You just gotta relax and let the kids enjoy themselves. At that age, some know the rules pretty well, and many just don’t grasp the concepts. Its not uncommon for a couple of kids to be playing an neither really understands the board. After a while, I had to declare some of the games drawn because the kids barely knew how to move the pieces, let alone give mate.
There isn’t much you can do about it. Not really sure exactly you would want the teacher to do. Theoretically, the kids aren’t suppose to be interrupted while playing. (I presume it was G/15). If you saying you think the teacher wasn’t trying to teach the children…
I have a story for you: In 4th grade my teacher taught the entire class how to play chess. I don’t think he was able to really teach much outside of the basic rules. He did play everybody a game or two. Of course, I was crestfallen when I couldn’t win against him. I don’t even remember playing against other children, although I"m sure I did. Anyway I had a friend that was one of those “gifted” students. So one day in 5th grade, he was over and I had this great idea to play chess… Needless to say, he won handily. Well, I was’t about to let him win against me forever. (and for some reason, the fact he was gifted didn’t factor into my logic). So I got “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” and I started winning!!!
So he didn’t care for that, so he studied chess and would win… so I had to get a new book and study it to win some more. And it seesawed between me and him until I joined the Army. Obviously I condensed many years in this story: I didn’t play chess with him all the time. But you know how kids are, they get bored and do something like play chess for a bit, then something else attracts their attention until some other day when both of us got bored and cracked open the chess board. YA BABY: it was one of those black and red chessboards with the exceptionally cheap plastic pieces that would knock over with the slightest bump of the board.
I first joined the USCF when I was in the Army, and thats when I got my first chess set worthy of playing in a tournament: straight from the USCF catalogue. My friend, he never bothered to have an interest in chess after I joined the army. That was a long time ago in a place far far away now.
Of course, I wasn’t there when the teacher was (not) teaching chess. With all the trouble they went to getting an excellent playing site and bringing in one of our state’s top scholastic TDs, I was surprised the teachers didn’t do more to help the students prepare with the Pawn and Queen series (or something similar), bring in someone who could teach it (or at least introduce it), or give out a reading list or internet resources.
Of course, “Expect to get walked over if you don’t prepare” is a lesson in itself.
In my case I saw some kids playing the game while waiting for my mom after doing something at the local YMCA. I had a library book on the game before I owned my first set. In my case, I had a series of near equal peers I played against before getting to college, but wasted too much time trying to get the 4 move mate to fly before another book showed me 2. Nf3!
No kidding! One of my students attended the chess club at his middle school. The lecture topic that day was capturing en passant. As many of you can imagine, the teacher was showing it incorrectly. My student, rated about 1600 at the time, pointed out the mistake and got thoroughly chewed out by the teacher. Really sad. Suffice it to say, this kid never attended his school’s club again.
A guy I met in the Army (very early 1970’s) was the beneficiary of some of the worst scholastic rules imaginable. An ordinary clock with a 2nd hand was by the side of the board and, if the game wasn’t over at the end of the desiginated time, they would count the value of the pieces to determine the winner. Temporarily (!?) a piece down, a recapture would allow a back rank mate. He waited until the last possible second before doing that and escaped with a draw.
One can think of worse abuses of that such as waiting to accept a sound sacrifice.
When my son first started playing ( many years ago) one young girl he was playing, kept helping him with his moves. While telling him, “don’t tell anyone cause “I am not suppose to help you, but I am sure your gonna win this game.”
When he told me, I had to laugh, but told the TD, his reply was " A win is a win”
When I first “learned” to play chess at my babysitter’s house (after school, kindergarten, 38 years ago), the other kid who was “teaching me” introduced me to the “King’s Four” attack. This involved the Knight moving in a square to attach a piece directly next to it. There was some “special condition” attached. I don’t remember what the condition was, but I suspect the real condition was that I was beating him.
I’ve been working with the local scholastic tournaments for a number of years, and like you I’ve seen some pretty poor quality chess being played. I recall one young girl that had four queens on her side and still could not figure out how to mate her opponent. But we don’t interfere unless we are called to the table by one of the players. It’s hard to watch, but letting these young people learn from their experiences is better than trying to explain it during a one day tournament where someone might get an advantage if a TD were to say something.
In another situation, several years ago, I recall a young boy who wept bitterly because he forgot to press his clock in a very close game, and when the time was called by his opponent he was deeply hurt, but what happened that day went a long way to helping this young man learn about the game. Today, a few years later, he is a mid-1900 rated player and slaying masters from time to time. Like I said…be very patient.
I doubt if even 10% of the scholastic players will go on to become like this young man, but the idea is to pass the game along and let them experience it for themselves. Who knows, maybe a good player in the making will come from it.
In my classes, it is something we work on each meeting. We make a game of it by seeing who can survive the longest, and points by the quickest. I do this on our projection screen, and it can get loud, as everyone loves to kibitz. I have to admit, the prize was often ice cream cake, but the winner got to take the leftovers.
I handed out a sheet with twenty common endings, the U.S. Chess Federation material, and then made sure I played a game with the new kids called baby chess, where the only material was the king and all the pawns. We then played out the game. It taught them the value of pawn structure early, and along with the simple end game practice, I felt they were proficient enough that they could play in any tournament, and at least knew the fundamentals. The funny thing, the little brothers and sisters often became hooked, and spend a lot of time playing.
In 1992, I was showing a game I played against a poor program at our chess club. A student who was in a team I was coaching to play in Lexington that year suggested a move which lost material to a double attack/check. While showing him that (and what I thought of the program) I said, “You can’t do that–you’ll lose your horsey.” He was practically in ROTFLOL hearing that from me (last person who would say that) and was laughing for several minutes. We joked about that for several weeks afterwards.
When my grandson plays indoors, it is usually a video game. I’ll try to suggest a chess camp for this summer, but will lay off the subject for the time being.
I thank others who wrote in–I’ll keep your ideas in mind. In the meantime I’ll only try to tell him almost everything he wants to hear about chess if he brings up the subject.
He was practically in ROTFLOL hearing that from me (last person who would say that) and was laughing for several minutes. We joked about that for several weeks afterwards.