Blog Archives - Chess Parents FAQs

Why studying tactics is most important for my kids?

3/31/2015

Among opening, tactics, endgame, middle game, master games, chess theory, positional thinking and all other chess topics, why tactics is the most important one my kids should study?

First, tactics is like arithmetic in Math, spelling in English, sketch in painting, shooting hoops in basketball, or goal kicking in soccer. Tactics shows up in every game, everywhere from opening, middle game, to end game. For anyone under 2000, 99% of times you win by tactics, and lose by tactics. Strong tactics skill provides you a solid foundation to leverage on. You build up other skills above that.

In Asia, most countries require elementary students to memorize the 9x9 multiplication table, some even go as far as to the 19x19 multiplication table. In US, memorization is least required. I had a university student who came into the tutor room asking for help with calculus. When we hit a problem that needed to divide 5 by 1, he quickly pulled out his calculator, and punched in "5 / 1 = ", then confidently wrote down 5 as his answer. No wonder he had to stay up late to 2am every night working on math homework.

Second, tactics is an area that can be quickly improved. The progress can be effectively measured. Studying tactics is the most efficient way to make a positive impact to your kids' games. Anyone who has spent time on openings will know one won't see much difference after learning a few new openings. You can memorize your perfect lines, but you may only play those lines in 10% of your games. At other times, either the openings are totally different, or your opponents don't know your perfect lines at all. You have to impromptu, with what? with your tactics skill.

Third, tactics is easy to train, and working on tactics puzzle is an interesting activity for your kids. This is like shooting hoops, your kids get immediate satisfaction after solving a puzzle. Memorizing opening is tedious, calculating 10, 20 moves for endgames is too hard for beginners, learning middle games just gets them lost in nowhere. Only tactics can motivate your kids and keep them move forward one by one.

Do I have to pick the section suggested by tournament director?

3/24/2015

My child is 1250, the tournament director suggested to choose U1300 section so my child could have more chance to win the section. Do I have to follow his suggestion?

NO, you don't have to.

In US, most tournaments are open tournaments. They normally have ceiling rating, such as U1300. If you are above 1300, you can't play in this section. But most don't have floor rating, so you can play up in any higher section you want to. Only a few tournament sections have floor rating to guarantee the strength of the sections so they can attract more strong players. In this case, they have to specify the floor rating in TLA announcement, otherwise the tournament director can't enforce the floor when players arrive.

For a scholastic player, most time s/he wants to play up to have more difficult challenges, as I suggested in another blog article. You, as a parent, have the ultimate decision right. No tournament director can force you into a lower section unless the floor is pre-announced. They can suggest, but they can't force. Please remember that tournament directors most times are not strong players, not coaches, and not knowing your child well. S/he makes suggestion only based on the standard view of rating, i.e. if you are not above 1300, you should play in U1300 section. Or s/he may try to balance the participant numbers among sections. You, yourself with your child, have to decide what's best for your child.

In addition, picking a lower section and trying to win it is not good decision in psychological perspective. Being the top seed, your child will have tremendous pressure, and could easily blunder under such high pressure.

Do I need a GM or IM coach for my child?

3/19/2015

There are some mystic advises like this: if you want your child to become a GM or IM, you have to make sure s/he starts with a good correct thinking habit like a GM/IM; therefore you should start with a GM/IM coach.

Is it true?

Yes and No, depending on your child's starting playing strength and the teaching ability of the GM/IM you can find.

If your child is already in Top 10 nationally of his/her age group, definitely you need a GM/IM coach.

If your child is above 1500, and is serious about developing his/her chess career further, YES, a GM/IM coach is very helpful.

If your child just starts learning chess, or doesn't know any tactics yet, or is still struggling under 1000, NO, you may not need a GM/IM at all.

GM/IM may have perfect knowledge, perfect opening lines, and perfect methods for solving problems perfectly. But these are not related to your child. Your child can't assimilate any of these perfect things. S/he will be overwhelmed, confused, and even discouraged. You don't feed a child or a very weak patient Ginseng, because his/her body can't take it. Too much nutrition and energy booster actually damage his/her health.

Most GM/IMs already forget how a beginner is thinking and learning. They will talk at a much higher level. They'd like your child to jump to that level right away. They don't understand why your child needs some steps in between, in their mind, it's so simple. And they may not know how to bridge the gap with these small steps. A GM/IM who can teach well at beginner level is a rare gem, if you are lucky to find one, grab him/her.

Nowadays, machines are much stronger than GMs and can calculate extremely accurate. For any position, they always give you the best move quickly. Even GMs are consulting the machines for better moves. Do you want to learn from a machine?

Now think about this: how many GM/IM's own children are playing well in chess? how many have the potential to become a GM/IM? Very few. Why? They have a GM/IM coach available at home 24x7.

GM is like a college professor, and IM an associate professor. Do you want a college professor to teach your child elementary school math?

How to find a good chess teacher?

3/17/2015

You always start from local, especially when your kid is still young, such as under 8. At this age, s/he needs face to face lessons, private or group. S/he feels more comfortable seeing the teacher as real person than staring at a computer screen. It's much easier to build rapport with the teacher. When s/he likes the teacher, s/he will like to learn.

You can ask around for suggestion in this order:

ask your friends
ask parents of any kids who play chess
ask our school, especially when they have an after-school chess club
ask your local library or nearby libraries
check township newspapers, especially when you look for summer camps
ask any teacher you meet (he or she may be living too faraway, but s/he may know some fellow teachers who live close to you)
ask local chess clubs
ask your state chess federation or association
ask online

When introducing kids to chess, stimulating the kids' interest is more important than infusing skills. Make sure your kid likes the teacher, otherwise switch as soon as possible. Do not expect fast progress. Most kids need time to get used to playing chess. As long as they want to play and like to play, they are fine. The keyword here is persistence.

If s/he starts to play in tournaments and become serious with her/his chess development, you will need a rated teacher who has experience with scholastic tournaments. 500 points gap is the least you should look for and minimum rating should be 1500. You want to search for good teacher or coach in this order:

ask other serious students and their parents
ask other coaches when you go to tournaments
ask local chess clubs
ask your state chess federation or association
search teacher lists on ICC (chessclub.com)
search coach directory on chess.com
ask online

Why should my child play up?

3/11/2015

This is a very big topic. Most kids attend school in their own grades, play sports in their own leagues or sections, participle math competitions in their own grade levels, and etc. Then, why in chess, most coaches will urge students, or more accurately their parents who actually help sign up tournaments, to play up?

The suggestion is totally valid and correct.

First, everyone gets improved by playing more challenging games. Easy games may help a little to maintain confidence (even this might be false confidence), but will not help you improve at all. We are bettering ourselves by going through difficulties. This is like everything else, life, study, or workout. No sweat, no smile.

Second, when you play a game, the end result is averaging both players's strength. The weaker player become stronger, because s/he has to extremely focus and work very hard to survive. Every move must be the best s/he could think of. In the meanwhile the stronger player will become weaker, because his/her imperfect move will not be caught and punished, and s/he still wins when playing badly which makes s/he think playing badly is ok. Next time s/he will make the same imperfect move. Which side do you want to be?

Third, similar to workout, if you always play comfortably, you will get used to the level. It will be very difficult to break through your current level. More workout time will not help. You need some dramatic decision and extra-strong determination to jump out of the box.

Fourth, related the point two, players tend to become careless when they play down, especially when the gap is 200 or 300 more. That's why once in a while we see some big upset.

Fifth, when you play up, if you lose, your rating will go down little, but if you win, your rating will jump. Every win will not only raise your rating, but also boost your confidence. You don't even have to win more games to have a higher rating after a tournament, because your rating change largely depends on the average of your opponents' ratings.

Sixth, when you play up, if you lose badly in a tournament, you won't feel that bad emotionally.

Playing up does not only apply to rating, same with students play in adult tournaments, or girls play in boys' sections, etc. Judit Polgar never plays in Women's tournaments, and Yifan Hou often plays in boys' section (World Youth) or on Men's team. This is how they became No. 1 woman player in the world.

My Son has Chinese School on Saturday, both PDS and CJCT tournaments are on Saturday, what can I do?

3/10/2015

This is a tough question for which I don't have a good answer. I think I had made wrong decision in this case myself, so I don't want to misguide you. I will just list the following arguments, and you make your own judgement call.

First, if the problem is just for one single day, then you can solve it quickly by searching USCF TLA for tournaments on another day, i.e. Sunday here. But soon he needs to play in large tournaments, which mostly take two days or a whole long weekend, what can you do? You have to decide whether to attend Chinese School (or any other activity) or play in tournament. It's a tough decision every time, and gets harder and harder.

Second, nowadays, kids have too many activities after school and on weekends. Here is an incomplete list:

Sports (swim, hockey, gymnastic, rhythm gymnastic, soccer, basketball, tennis, badminton, track, taekwondo, martial art, etc.)
Music (piano, flute, violin, drum, etc.)
Painting
Math (Kumon, math competitions)
Debate
Chess, Go
Chinese School

All sports have competitions (tournaments) on weekends.

There are only two days in a weekend. So be realistic.

If anyone wants to be good in any activity, becoming regional or national ranked, it takes at least 2-3 hours daily, and 4-5 days a week, just for practice. How many 2-3 hour blocks s/he has everyday? S/he can only be great in one, or excellent in two. That's it. S/he can test water everywhere, but sooner or later, a decision has to be made.

My own lesson forces me to suggest: try to be great in one, average in others. Excellent in two sounds ideal, but rarely feasible.

When can I expect my child reach 2000 level?

3/9/2015

Of course, it depends on lots of factors, especially on how much hard work your kid is willing to put in.

Here is a typical growth path for a well-developed chess kid:

begin to learn chess in K-2
start to play in scholastic tournaments after 6 months
get above 1000 in two years
reach 1500 when s/he leaves elementary school
with some hard work, move up 100-200 a year during middle-school years, of course there are ups and downs
before or right after s/he gets into high school, s/he should be able to reach 2000

So overall it takes about 6 to 8 years, as long as s/he persists and does the hard work. This applies to all above-average students. But not all above-average kids can persists for 6 to 8 years, especially during his/her down time. It's definitely a long term effort and commitment, but the goal is reachable for all students who can perform well in school.

A few kids may start earlier and make faster progress, such as Carissa Yip, who is the youngest (age 11) female master in US, and Hikaru Nakamura became master at age 10.

How can I tell whether my child will like chess?

3/6/2015

The truth is you can never tell.

If you wait for your child to show his/her fondness of chess before you give him/her enough exposure to chess, then you may never know. It's like the question about chicken and egg.

Whether your child will like chess or not is not something you can do much about. But whether your child gets enough exposure to chess is something you can do a lot. Teach him/her the basic rules, sign him/her up for after-school chess club, go to library, find other kids who play chess, etc. You can do many many things to test your child's interest, free or at a very low.

Even the current World Champion Magnus Carlsen didn't show that he liked chess at age 5, though his dad was active amateur player and chess lover. Only after he lost a game against his sister at age 8, he suddenly woke up and really got in it. He rarely played any game in those three long years between 5 and 8. He was busy with his Lego sets and memorizing the names, areas, populations of all 430 municipalities in Norway.

Here are some good signs that hint your child might like to play chess:

like to play Lego
like to play puzzle
like to memorize things
like to play other board games
like to play cards
like to play any game or sports that involves win and lose
like to watch other people play games (any game)

Make your first step into the wonderland, you and your child will never regret.

Bon voyage!

What are the responsibilities of a chess parents?

3/4/2015

As a chess parent, you have a lot to do to help develop your child's interest in chess. As a start, here is an incomplete list:

sign up your child for after-school chess club or summer camps
buy a standard chess set for your child (make it formal :-))
find a place for your child to play chess
exchange information with other chess parents
get your child some chess friends as his/her peers
find a good chess coach or chess teacher for your child

sign up your child for group lessons
remind your child of his/her chess homework
remind your child that s/he should play chess games at home or online everyday
monitor your child's progress
communicate with his/her coach from time to time
buy chess books or software when suggested
sign up your child an online account so s/he can play chess online
get your child the USCF membership
find tournaments for your child on USCF website
drive your child to chess lessons or chess tournaments
feed your child at tournaments
hug and encourage your child, no matter what his/her tournament results are
best, play along with your child, at home and/or in tournaments

The younger your child, the more you have to do for him/her. Your involvement is critical for your child's success, especially when s/he is under age 10.

What is the difference between online rating and USCF rating?

3/3/2015

When I talk to parents, often they quote me their kids' ratings on chess.com or ICC. I have to tell them I need to know USCF ratings. Most times online ratings are much higher for beginners, which make both parents and kids happy. But that doesn't tell the truth. When they go to tournaments, they will be greatly disappointed.

USCF rating is calculated based on over-the-board games with long time control. They are the real test of a person's strength. People tend to play blitz online because we as human don't have the patience to stare at an unchanging screen for even 5 minutes, especially when we wait for our opponents (who are invisible) to move. So online rating basically is blitz rating. Blitz rating can fluctuate a lot and is not accurate. Online ratings can have huge discrepancy from USCF rating, higher or lower either way. 500-point difference is not uncommon. My chess.com rating is 400 lower than my USCF rating because I get timed out in 60% of my online games.

You can use your online rating to track your progress with blitz if you play a lot. Otherwise, it's meaningless anywhere.

If a coach quotes you his online rating, check his USCF rating. If he could not facilitate his USCF rating history, there might be a problem. I knew a popular coach whose highest rated student was 1500. He had never played any rated tournaments but still had many students. Undeniable, he had done a great job to introduce kids to chess. When he finally began to play 10 years later, his rating was stuck around 1500. He actually unintentionally destroyed the future of his best students.