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Where to play chess online?

4/27/2016

I still remember the days we played on Yahoo!Chess, which is no longer available. Because we all have one problem, there is not many opportunities to play at home against different opponents, we have to play online. There are a lot of websites on which you can play live chess. I will list a few popular ones.

chesskid.com: free or membership, for young kids under 10 and under USCF 1000. It's safe because of the limited friend function. Videos are funny for kids.

chess.com: free or membership, parent of chesskid.com. Videos are of good quality, and a lot of discussion. More social. Tactics Trainer is good.

chessclub.com (ICC): membership. Because of no free account, players tend to be more serious. Videos are of good quality. The interface is more flexible and powerful. Most teachers use ICC.

playchess.com: membership. Use chessbase interface. Has tactics training based on chessbase database.

freechess.org (FICS): free. Similar to ICC. No video.

lichess.org: free. Getting popular now.

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How soon should I expect my child cross over 1000?

4/25/2016

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The ballpark expectation should be 1 year after s/he gets his/her initial rating, depending on how hard your child can work.

When your child is young, such as under age 10, it's very easy for him/her to improve quickly. S/he has a lot of time to study, solve puzzles, play games, and play in tournaments. S/he can afford to make mistakes here and there, but still maintain progress. Even if your child is older than age 10, s/he should have better comprehension to absorb knowledge quickly.

Most students who have been staying with chess have crossed over 1000 in a year. There are a few who might get their initial rating above 1000. This can be a blessing or curse, because the initial rating is not stable. If they drop down for a few tournaments to their real ratings, then they might be discouraged dramatically and quit. Of course, if they could hold on to it, then they have saved a lot of time.

If your child can't get above 1000 after 2 or 3 years, either s/he is not working hard enough, or s/he is not in it. Not everyone has to play chess, so find another hobby for him/her. It's completely normal.

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Why playing too many scholastic tournaments is bad for your child?

4/7/2016

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Over the years I have been perplexed by the fact that so many kids have been stuck under 1000 for many years. They have been playing in scholastic tournaments year in and year out, but never make significant improvement. When they get to middle school, most of them just quit.

What can go wrong with them or with their chess study?

One reason might be too many scholastic tournaments. They or their parents focus on beating other kids and getting trophies. They forget one thing: chess is the contest of ability, not age. Using age to group kids is in fact a totally wrong approach. Chess requires brain, not body. Age plays a very small role in how a kid's brain has been developing.

Several bad consequences can occur if your child has played too many scholastic tournaments:

Because most scholastic tournaments have short time control, such as G30, so the results are more random than non-scholastic. Your child's win or loss may depend on who is more careless.
Your child's opponents tend to be less serious, which may induce your child to be less serious, so s/he will gain little from the experience. If s/he gets used to that in-seriousness, s/he would gain several bad habits, such as "talking" during the games, moving too fast, or being impatient when his/her opponents are thinking.
If your child's rating is too random, s/he may not get his/her rating above any significant threshold, such as 1000. So s/he won't gain the positive feedback from the breakthrough, which in fact is critical for his/her chess career.
S/he won't fight when s/he gets into difficult situations
S/he may get burned out because of too many games in a day

When my daughter grew up, we unfortunately didn't have too many tournaments in Ohio, let alone scholastic ones. She played her first scholastic tournament and got rated. Then she had to play 5 adult tournaments in 4 months to cross above 1000: one quick, two small groups, and two major tournaments.

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Where to play chess online?

How soon should I expect my child cross over 1000?

Why playing too many scholastic tournaments is bad for your child?

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