Blog Archives - Chess Parents FAQs

Should I encourage my child to play in long time-control tournaments?

8/24/2015

Yes, there is no doubt about it that long time-control tournaments is true tests for a player's strength.

If your child has already played some tournaments, has some experience with how tournaments are going, and is comfortable with the competition, s/he should try to play in some long time-control tournaments. Most of them are adult tournaments, which mean that s/he will possibly play against some adults. It's great practice for him/her.

Short time-control tournaments, such as G30, or G45, are good to keep you familiar with the game, and provide you more chance to practice because you can play 3 to 5 games in a day. You can at most play two per day in long time-control tournaments. But the problem with short one is that you can't think about complex strategies and long plan. Endgames will also be rushed through because you most likely don't have time at that stage. Because of time pressure and time trouble, most players have instalbe performance in short time-control tournaments.

Do not ask the question, "is my child ready for long time-control tournaments?" My daughter's third tournament "Columbus Open" is a long time-control tournament. She was less than 700 and played everyone 300 to 600 points above her. Losing 4 but luckily winning 1, she picked up 100 points while gaining great experience.

Why chess tactic software are better than tactic websites

8/21/2015

This statement is for anyone who is a beginner or who is still mainly studying chess.

Most chess tactic software (from chessOK) are based on Soviet chess books. They are well-designed to teach kids. Kids can learn the themes, or topics, or strategies if you like to call them this way, one by one. Learn it and practice it. Repetition is the key for learning.

You can also test yourself by selecting levels, number of problems, and time. The software will pick problems to test you. The intensive tests can serve as effective training.

If you finish one CD, you know you have accomplished something. This positive feedback is very important for motivating students to work on more difficult CD.

The three software I recommend are:

Chess Tactics for Beginners 2.0
Chess Tactics for Intermediate Players
CT*Art 4.0

All of them and other chessOK software are available at my online MiniStore.
("Training Package for Intermediate Players" includes last two and other 3 software)

Most chess websites have large collections of problems, but they are not well organized and cleaned. The themes can jump around when you work on problems. It's not easy to train by repetition. The difficult level can change dramatically. And you never feel you achieve anything because you can never finish the database.

What are the benefits of chess academically?

8/20/2015

There are a lot of research on this topic. You can easily find a bunch by goolging. Here I list a few of them.

simple number comparison - Queen is 9 points, and Knight is 3, so Queen is more valuable than Knight. (math)
simple number addition and subtraction - If I lose a Knight (3), and a Pawn (1), I am losing 4 in total. If I gain a Rook (5) in the meaning time, I am actually up 1 point. (math)
color and shape reorganization (science)
make assumption - if I jump out my Knight, it will be attacked by his Pawn. (math, science)
recognize straight lines and diagonals (geometry)
logical thinking - the Bishop is in light square, his King is in dark square, so I can't check him with my Bishop. (math and all subjects)
deep calculation - calculate those moves that are not played on board yet. (3-dimension geometry and advanced math)
notate games - handwriting (english)
read chess books and chess stories (english)
explain reasons behind his moves (english)
report game or tournament details to parents or coach (english)
make friends (social science)
remember countries, national flags, and etc. (geography, history)
study chess history (history)
read chess books in Russian, French, German, or Spanish (foreign languages)

Why is it easier for a little kid to learn chess and improve?

8/20/2015

A little kid is not as concern about winning or losing as an adult, so it's easier for him/her to play more games and to experiment with all kinds of new moves. Everyone learns by making mistakes. A kid who can play more will also learn more. It's in proportion. This is one of the reasons kids in NY/NJ, TX and CA tend to play better than kids in other states. They have much more opportunities to play in tournaments, not only scholastic tournaments, but also major adult tournaments. They are frequently challenged and they have been growing much faster.

Playing 10-20 blitz is not huge feat for kids. They can easily do it and enjoy every game. They can do it everyday for an extended period without being burned out. They don't have other responsibilities to worry about as adults. Most young stars are playing chess couple of hours every day throughout many years.

One of my unofficial survey shows that most chess kids start to learn chess between 5-7 and play tournaments between 6-8.

What does my child learn from tactics training?

8/20/2015

The ultimate purpose for any training, no matter it's tactic training or endgame training, or opening training, is to prepare for his/her tournaments (or real games). So what s/he wants to learn is something that might be beneficial to his/her tournaments.

First, s/he wants to learn patterns, or motifs in chess term. The more motifs s/he knows, the faster s/he can generate ideas over the board. In chess games, especially for beginngers, ideas are much more important than calculation. If s/he can come up good ideas often, s/he will win more games. Without ideas, calculation is just brutal force and will not be efficient.

Second, s/he learns how to calculate. Most problems should be 2-5 moves deep, with a few variations. That's the type of problems s/he will face in his/her games. S/he should sense the possibility for a tactics, see it, calm down, and calculate all variations. Because during the tournament games, time is limited. S/he has to learn to quickly decide how much s/he can allocate to find solution. Time management is critical. when s/he has enough time, s/he should be patient, following the variation move by move, remembering everything, clarifying each line, quickly confirming or denying any short variation, and concentrating on one or two long variations.

Third, s/he learns to double or triple check his/her work. S/he needs go over all possibilities to search for any hole in his/her solution. Sometimes s/he has to redo his/her calculation.

Through training, s/he should refine these processes, making them more automatic, smooth, and efficient. In the end, s/he should have higher confidence that s/he has found the correct solution, and most times it should be true.

What is the single requirement for becoming a good chess player?

8/19/2015

Willingness to play games, a lot of games, no matter you are winning more or losing more.

There is no other way to improve much without playing games. If you know all the tactics, know all the opening, know all the endgames, and know all the strategies and positional ideas, but you rarely play, you are at most a theorist and will stay as a beginner. Whether you really know all these things, it's a myth that no one can find out until you begin to play one day.

USCF and FIDE have rating systems. That's how they measure and track your strength. Even all those online chess playing sites have some rating systems which shows your performance. If you don't play, your rating will stay at the default level (looks like nice on paper), but you never improve.

To play and lose every time require some endurance. But if your child perseveres through such trial, s/he will be very strong mentally, even if not chess-wise. I once challenged my student to lose 100 games straight on chesskid.com. But he could not do it. The losing stream stopped at 40-some game, and turned around. Now he is winning much more than losing.

Should my child study the variations generated by chess engine?

8/19/2015

Most likely no,

Engine is thinking differently than human being. Some moves might be very powerful but not reasonable from human standing point of view. Learning such moves are not doing anything good to your child's chess development. What we want to learn is some principled moves that we can apply in other situations again and again, not once-in-a-life-time special long combination.

Engine is used to generate ideas, sometimes verify ideas.

Why "Genius is made, not born"?

8/19/2015

This is the famous quote of Laszlo Polgar, who conducted the "Polgar Experiment" with his wife. They had trained their three daughters, Susan, Sofia and Judit to become top chess players, two GMs and one IM.

All children are smart enough to learn chess and to become very good. There are three things that prevent them from being good. First is no exposure and not enough exposure to chess. Second, some people don't like chess or any games in nature. And third is, whether they are willing to do the hard work.

For the first obstacle, as parents, you should provide your child enough exposure to chess. Don't choose for them, but let them choose their activities. If they don't like it at all after multiple tries, then switch to other activities they like.

For second, even someone who don't like chess that much can become very good with hard work. The second Polgar sister Sofia is a proof. She loves art much more than chess, and she nontheless became an IM.

The third one is critical for anyone engaging in any endeavor. If you want to be successful, you have to pay with your hard work.

Why tactics training is important?

8/18/2015

We have discussed why tactics is the most important skill for beginners. 99.99% amateurs win games by tactics. But why tactics training is important? Why can't I just read a book, and do some exercises? then I know all the tactics.

Yes, you can know all the tactics quickly. But can you use them in your games? All beginners know a little bit of some tactics, such as double attack, pin, remove defence, and etc. But when they sit before the board, they can't see any. Just like everyone knows checkmate, but many beginners will miss one-move checkmate.

Without training, you are not sensitive to these tactics. You can't feel it's there, and you won't search for it, of course, you have nothing to verify and execute. Any good move you have made is just by accident. This is not the way to win games in long term. You have to train yourselve.

For any endeavor, knowledge is not enough to make you good, while training (practice) will. You need to do it again and again to hammer the concept into your brain so you just detect it by reflection in your games. Our thinking or calculation should not start from random places. It should start from some reasonable places. How to find these initial places? We don't search from scratch. It will take too much time even if the search is possible. Our mind just jumps to there by intuition. The intuition is built up by long term intense training.

That's why I assign a lot of homework for every class. This is just minimum practice. I conduct Tactics Workshop for my tournament players every week. I will also include tactics training in my online courses. But most importantly, they should train themselves at home with software or websites.

What are the three most important things my child can learn from chess?

8/17/2015

They are chess opening, not endgame, not even tactics, i.e., not any of those chess skills. Not the ability to look 3 moves ahead, not the deep calculation ability, not visualize 3-dimension complex structure, NO, all these are just side products.

First, they learn to enjoy life. Play chess is having fun. Chess players love to have fun. What will kids do between rounds? they play blitz or bughouse. They will laugh and they will run around if allowed.

Second, they learn "to be not afraid of losing". They have been beaten, and will be beaten again and again, but they always come back and fight another game.

Third, they learn that success comes from hard work. The more you work, the better you will be.

A chess game is like life, and life is like a chess game. If they have learned these three, their chess tuition has not been wasted.