Blog Posts - Chess Parents FAQs

What national tournaments are there in the US?

12/7/2022

According to the latest USCF document, https://new.uschess.org/sites/default/files/media/documents/us-chess-scholastic-regulations-2022-2023a_8-6-2022.pdf, the United States still has at least The following games:

SuperNationals: Once every four years (the following three spring tournaments combined, can be as many as 5,000 people)

Spring Nationals: There are three tournaments in elementary school, middle school and high school.

The K-12 Grade National Championship (this weekend's tournament) has already had a record-breaking attendance of over 2,300 this year.

Online National Scholastic Quick Championships: I don’t know if the tournament after the epidemic will continue in the future

National Youth Action Championships: not popular

Junior Chess Congress: not popular

U.S. Junior Open: The only bright spot, the winner can participate in the US Junior Closed, the top invitational tournament for students.

All-Girls Nationals: It's KCF in the spring, in Chicago. The number of participants is 300-400.

These are all tournaments that are fully open to elementary and middle school students studying in the United States.

Why do you need a team to participate in the national tournament?

12/6/2022

Why do you need a team to participate in the national tournament? Or why having a team is good for children's growth?

The first, of course, is that having a team is more likely to win trophies. Personally, if you want to get a trophy, you can only lose one or two points at most in the 7 rounds, which is very difficult. The team is different, because it counts the results of the top three in your grade in your school. Even if your own performance is not satisfactory, as long as three people in your team perform well, you may win the trophy. And not every school has teams, so the competition is much smaller. A section of more than 200 people may only have 20 or so teams. The probability of winning is greatly increased.

The second is the sense of honor of the team. You fight for the team, not just for yourself. Individuals can give up at any time, and come back next time, but for the team you have to try harder, maybe one more time or one more minute. There are so many eyes on you, so many people looking forward to your victory.

Third, teammates support and encourage each other. Teammates will not be matched according to rule, so everyone will do their best to help their teammates prepare and win. This is completely different from the general individual tournament, and it is another kind of atmosphere.

My daughter had been eager to have a team since she was young, but it was not until the 12th grade of high school that she led the chess club, and had the opportunity to lead the team to participate in the High School National Championship tournament in spring. She caught the last chance and her team won the 11th place.

Why go to the national tournament if you can't gain rating points?

12/3/2022

As we said before, going to the national tournament has four purposes:

1. Get a team trophy for the school

2. See the world

3. Get yourself a personal trophy

4. Gain rating points

People go there mostly for 1 and 2. If it is purely 2, it is for "buying soy sauce" (playing for fun only). 3 is relatively rare, because strength is needed first, and then luck is needed. No one can predict with the luck. The pairing of the student competition is very important. If the pairing is poor, you make a small mistake and immediately fall into the lower half, and it will be difficult to turn around. So even if you are a strong player, it is difficult to guarantee that you can win the trophy. In addition, luck depends on your opponents' scores, which is not controllable.

Chasing 4 is almost a daydream of very few people. It is good to be able to gain points, but don’t be disappointed if you can’t. Of course, your rating should never fall sharply.

So being able to complete 1 and 2 is very successful.

Can we gain the points by going to the national tournament?

12/2/2022

Just now someone in the WeChat group asked: "Why are the strong ones afraid of losing points? I don't really understand. How can you improve if you don't go to the strong tournaments?"

Immediately someone answered: "Everyone who is strong likes to play up, and play with those who are hundreds of points higher than him. This is a student tournament, and the children who are good are all near the highest scores in their grades. He can't meet people who are higher than him for few hundred points, but it is easy to meet someone a few hundred points lower than himself, so he doesn’t want to go.”

So it's not that the tournament is strong, but that the tournament is not strong enough.

For high-rated players, it is really difficult to go to the national tournament to gain rating points. At least four of the 7 rounds are against low-rated players. If there is a mistake in the other three rounds, the rating will drop. No one is completely sure that they will be able to win the championship. If he is so sure, then the gap between him and other players will be several hundred points. In this case, even if he wins, he will only gain a few points.

If you can't gain points, why go? There are still a few strong players going there every year. We'll talk about it tomorrow.

What is the 2022 US National Grade-level Chess Tournament?

12/1/2022

The grade-level tournament is one of the major national tournaments held twice a year, usually in early December. It has been in Orlando in previous years, but this year it moved to National Harbor in Maryland, and it will move back next year.

The so-called grade-level is divided into grades, each grade has one group, mixed boys and girls, from kindergarten (K) to twelfth grade, a total of thirteen groups. The first place in each group is the national champion, and if there is a tie, it will use tie-breaker. My students have had the honor of winning first-grade national championships twice.

There are a large number of participants every year, and this year it is close to the country's most developed area for chess, so there will be more people going. At present, the number of applicants has exceeded 2,200, and the states with the most are New York, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and Florida. In terms of grades, there are more than 200 students from Grade 2 to Grade 7 each. With a large mixed group, it's really hard to say who will win.

Another feature of the student tournaments is that there are teams, one team per school (per grade). It is the wish of many children to take a trophy back for the school. Our goal this year is also to win a team award.

How long does it take to solve one problem?

11/27/2022

This is one of the most difficult zugzwang problems I have ever been trying.

On Jun 9, I copied this problem from Facebook and posted in WeChat group, with the following original hint:
Berger, 1888 white to move and win. (#16)

Somebody suggested Qb8, only one move. There was no followup to this move. I suggested to use the two weaknesses, g2 and h2 squares. My conclusion was to reach g3. I claimed I knew, but found a hole in my approach right away: I will be checked.

Jun 13, I re-posted the problem. I suggested another approach and drew an illustration diagram, but it ended up with question what can we do after Qf4 Ba6?

Jun 21, I asked again. No response.

July 4, I exclaimed that the problem is so hard. After 15 minutes, I claimed I had another solution, but again I found some small holes. The problem is put on backburner again.

July 26, I asked again. Another expert made another suggestion, with no confirmation from anyone.

Nov 22, 4 months later. I re-posted the problem. The same expert made couple suggestions, and some seemed to be positive progress.

Last night, Nov 25, when I woke up in the mid-night. The problem suddenly comes into my mind, and I knew I could solve it. I spent about half hour to solve it completely in my mind. Then fell into sleep again.

Finally, after 5 months 16 days, we have the solution!!!

I will explain the solution in my YouTube channel.

Black Friday Shopping List

11/23/2022

Black Friday Shopping List：

1. Chessbase,professional tool, chessbase.com 25%

2. ChessKing Max 90， large puzzle database for practice，https://chesskingtraining.com/products/chess-king-learn/chess-king-maximum-90/
with coupon Code "IntroOffer20", 20%, or get it from uscf sales.

3. USCF Sales， general items， https://www.uscfsales.com/ 20%

4. Wholesales chess， general items， https://www.wholesalechess.com/ 20%

Why did I choose Steps as my textbook? (1)

8/31/2022

In 2014, I decided to start teaching chess after accompanying my daughter playing in chess tournaments for 8 years. I know that textbooks are needed, but many introductory books only have lecture notes, no exercises. And many puzzle books don't explain at all. If there is no outside suggestion, I might choose the following two books as teaching materials.

Soon after I started to advertise, Jairo found me because he needed someone to teach after school. He gave me a hint to check out Steps. I immediately went to the USCF Shop to search and found a set of workbooks and manuals. When I received the books, I really felt good, and I made my decision right away. THIS IS IT!

First impression:
1. Rich in content, clear knowledge points, and step by step
2. A lot of practice, save the trouble of finding exercises for students
3. Not in a hurry

I used some Step 1 content in the after-school class, taught a Step 2 class, and prepared the initial teaching material for my daughter's All-girls Camp in November.
(To be continued)

The difference between online and in-person classes

8/31/2022

Some parents asked about the difference between online classes and in-person classes. I will write a few words. The difference discussed here is about the online and in-person classes I am teaching. Not necessarily be able to cover other teachers'.

The first is the length of class time. The online class is 75 minutes, and the in-person class is one hour. The online class is basically a half-hour homework discussion, a 15-minute new lesson, and a half-hour commentary on students' games. Online class students do not play games in class. Parents make an appointment after chess class, according to the pairing I give for the week. The in-person class is 20 minutes of homework discussion, 10 minutes of new lesson, and half an hour of game playing. Playing chess is a feature of the in-person class. Parents who are willing to sign up in-person class are also interested in this opportunity to play against their classmates. But the disadvantage is that the chess games in in-person class cannot be commented, because almost no one records it (clearly and correctly), and even if it is recorded (my advanced class is required to write notation, for preparing for tournaments), there is no guarantee that I will be able to play the game out again with the score sheets.

From this point of view, the teaching time of online courses is obviously more than that of in-person courses.

In terms of curriculum design, online classes are about one academic year, with thirty-four lessons, one step in a year. The in-person classes are a quarter and a section, 10-12 lessons, and there are about 30 lessons in a year. However, many students only sign up for one or two quarters, so it is difficult to ensure the continuity and the final teaching quality. It is difficult to guarantee. There are new students every quarter, so taking care of them is another task. Teaching content will be discounted.

Online classes are video recordings of the entire course, while in-person classes are only videotaped for computer teaching part.

Whether it is online or in-person, my teaching is always of a question-and-answer mode. The teacher is responsible for asking questions and the students are responsible for answering. All are fast-paced. In online classes, we cover at least 36 homework questions and about 10 positions for new lessons. We can only do our best in in-person classes, and the goal is the more the better. Thirty questions should be fine. Therefore, we will see almost 1,500 positions a year in online courses, 350 positions in in-person courses a quarter and about 1,000 positions a year. Therefore, we will solve many more problems in a year than many other classes.

Book: Simple Chess

7/13/2022

Book: Simple Chess

Is chess simple? All big bang theory starts from some simple assumptions and after accumulating for millions of years, now here is the world.