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Why "is my child gifted in chess" is a bad question?

10/16/2015

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Some parents ask me or other coaches such questions when their child picks up chess or any other new activities,
"is my child good at it?"
"is my child talented enough in chess?"
or worst of all,
"is my child gifted in chess?"

As I understand, they don't want to waste any time or money on something their child can't be an outstanding achiever. They ask such questions after a few lessons, or after couple of months of learning, or after a few tournaments, sometime even before their child starts to learn chess. They want to make their decision early and quickly.

Several bad things might happen if they keep brooding on such questions, even if their child is really talented. The child may not start to learn chess at all, if the parents can't see any potential. The child and parents may easily get discouraged when the initial progress is slow. Their doubt will grow over-sized large with the passing time, and they will quickly quit. They will switch to other activities, asking the same questions and getting the same results.

There is a parable about a well digger, who tried to dig a well in a desert. He dug a little bit, could not find water, then he stopped, moved some distance and started to dig again. After leaving hundreds of holes on the ground, he still could not find any water, because none of them was deep enough.

It's not easy to see talent if the child is a slow starter. A special event or moment may be required for him/her to get on the right track.  Even if s/he is talented, it takes a lot of hard work to become a great achiever, according to 10,000-hour rule. Gifted or not, without hard work, no one will become a genius. Without firm belief in oneself and full support from parents, no one can perseveres through 10,000 hours. Most will hesitate and stop when the road becomes bumpy.

Like many other activities, chess has numerous benefits for the child even if s/he can't become a GM. Therefore, don't ask such negative questions. Just follow Nike's slogan: JUST DO IT.


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Why do we want to solve difficult 2-move checkmate problems?

10/14/2015

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Most two-move checkmate problems are easy, just check-defend-checkmate. But there is a small genre of mate-in-2 problems are very difficult, mostly are man-made. Each problem may take 15 minutes to 1 hour. Why do we want to work on them?

First, because of their complexity, we have to make thorough observation before thinking about any candidate moves. Rushing out ideas right away will not help us. After these ideas get refuted, our mind will get stuck. We must adopt a systematic approach. By finding out where are our weakest links and where are our strongholds, we can put our focus on the correct areas.

Second, almost all of them are not starting with a check. So there are many more choices for the first move. Any legal move is possible and should be considered. How do we pick out candidate moves which has higher potential to be our solution? This forces us to learn to analyze a position, pinpointing the familiar patterns and distinguishing good moves from useless moves.

Third, because the problems are man-made, the designers have taken great effort to weed out those non-solution moves. We have to test all our candidate moves and remember all the moves we have tried and failed. It trains our memory to remember all variations, sometimes up to more than 10.

Fourth, we have to be patient, double-checking and triple-checking our solutions, going through all possible defenses slowly and finding all finishing checkmates. This is how we think in our tournament games.


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My daughter often forgets to press the clock, and her opponent is using her time to think. Is it against rule?

10/5/2015

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No, it's not against rule. Keeping clock time correct is both players' responsibility. Her opponent has no obligation to remind her, and no one can remind her according to rule. She has to learn the lesson the hard way.

But it's against sportsmanship if you notice that your opponent has forgotten to press the clock but not remind him/her. Even worse, if you pretend that you are thinking on your own time. No one would like to have you as a friend if you have been caught. Yes, it's not against rule, not cheating, but it's very close to cheating in many people's eyes, especially from the victim's point of view. It will damage the honesty and fairness of the game.

If a coach teaches his/her student such cheap tricks, s/he is doing a disservice for nurturing the child's character.

I actually encountered such a child once. Her chronos clock has mechanical problem. Normally a light tap is enough. Hers required hard hit. She didn't remind me about the problem. At multiple times she just sat there, pretending. By looking at her, I knew something was wrong. After the third time, I began to crash her clock and also crash her game. I didn't feel good about the girl, and I despised her coach even more.

NOTE: your opponent is not allowed to make a move if you don't press the clock.

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    Coach Andy
    Princeton Chess Academy

    Having been a chess parent for more than 10 years himself, Coach Andy will answer questions about chess, chess education, scholastic chess for chess parents from his own experience and lessons. 

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