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Last update: Tuesday June 5, 2007 15:02
Support
Juniors obviously need some parental support, usually in the form of transport to matches, entry fees for competitions, encouragement, consolation... A “chess family” will often find it useful to link up with other such families to help each other e.g. with transport, supervision.
Motivation
Motivation has to come from the player. As in everything else, it is important to keep a sense of proportion. I have seen some young players turned off completely when put under too much pressure by over-enthusiastic parents or coaches; such children often do the minimum to stay out of bother, and end up by dropping out of the game completely when they feel confident enough to assert themselves.
Winning and losing
A player needs to lose hundreds of games to become strong. Losing is just a normal part of the game, like moving the pieces and pressing the clock. Losing should hurt a little, prompting a desire to find out what went wrong, but it should not devastate. A player that cannot cope with losing is not likely to succeed at any competitive sport or game. The important thing for all concerned is to maintain a sense of proportion - and also to try to learn something from each defeat! The motto should be: relax – it’s only a game; but concentrate, because you want to do your best!
Where and when to play
Juniors improve by playing against someone a bit better than themselves, but they usually keep playing as long as there is someone that they can enjoy beating! A local chess club is an obvious starting point, but not all clubs are “junior-friendly”, and it is worth asking around among other “chess-parents”. As many local chess events as possible should be entered. It is also possible to play chess against software or on the Internet (see overleaf). But players’ appetite for chess varies enormously. Some like to play chess or read chess books every day; for others a serious game every week or couple of weeks is more appropriate. However, all juniors need a good mix of different types of chess events and activities, some of which will be well within their capabilities and in which they can be expected to do well, and others that will stretch them. Note that an over-protective approach can slow down progress considerably at an age when a junior can improve very fast.
National junior events, such as those organised by the English Primary Schools Chess Association, can also be useful, but it is important to keep a sense of proportion – the importance of these EPSCA events can easily become exaggerated, and both parents and children can find themselves feeling unduly pressurised. As soon as possible, a keen junior should start entering long-play adult tournaments. These are advertised on ECF website: www.englishchess.org.uk. Once you are on “the circuit”, you can easily pick up entry forms for forthcoming events. If playing five games over a weekend is too daunting, or just plain inconvenient, then it is usually possible to arrange to miss one game and take a “half-point bye”.
One’s own games
- are your most important study material. A player should always record every serious long-play game played, carefully and neatly, in standard chess notation so that they can be looked at again later. It is important to record the opponent’s name correctly, and it is useful to find out the opponent’s ECF grade. By the way, a player should not feel depressed at having to play against opponents who are higher graded - they have more to lose, so one should adopt a positive attitude and put them under pressure. If there is time after the game has finished, strong players usually go through the game with the opponent – this is known as having a “post-mortem”. Ideally, games should later be entered and saved into Fritz/Chessbase. There is no requirement or necessity to record rapid-play games, but it can be useful to record the name of the opponent and the first dozen or so moves, so that the opening can be looked up later.
KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid!
More games are lost through mistakes than are won by brilliantly imaginative play, so a player can improve his or her results simply by cutting down on the number of mistakes made; this usually means the player needs to slow down a bit and concentrate on getting the basics right!
At the start of a game the (interconnected) priorities are roughly:
King safety – a player needs to be alert from the start
especially for attacks by two pieces against the “weak-point” f2
(or f7 for Black) which at the start of the game is guarded only by the king
himself.
Note that in most 1 e4 e5 openings it is a good idea to prepare kingside castling,
which puts an extra guard (the rook) on the weak-point.
Influence over the centre of the board is important and is
generally achieved by 2-3 pawn-moves and by quickly “developing”
the “minor pieces” (the knights and bishops) to sensible squares.
Self-improvement by practising tactics
Chess is 90% tactics, so solving (or at least trying to solve) lots of chess puzzles every week can be an enjoyable way to improve. There are many suitable books of tactics puzzles available. However, parents should not pressurise in this respect either – encourage, help, join in, but don’t pressurise. Chess is a game and must always be treated as such; try to avoid words like “study” and “homework.
Recommended tactics material includes:
Learning from the greats
A lot can be learnt from playing through complete games with good notes. At first, the most useful games to study are those of the great attacking players of the 19th century, such as de Labourdonnais, Anderssen, Morphy, Blackburne, Tchigorin, Steinitz, Tarrasch.
Improving endgame skill
- is second only to tactics in the drive for chess improvement. There are two elements to endgame technique:
1) a small number of important precise basic endgame positions need to be learnt perfectly!
2) one also needs to learn what methods are appropriate to use in endgames that cannot yet be reduced to one of the precise basic positions.
Some endgame books that I can recommend include:
Openings
It is important to try to get off to a good start, so openings are important, but less so than many people think. There are many keen players who spend far too much time studying different chess openings, when they would be better off developing their tactical and endgame skills.
A set of openings is known as a “repertoire”. In general, young players should have a “low-maintenance” repertoire that aims for direct play, based on simple, aggressive strategies, to develop their tactical ability. The booklet “Ten ways to succeed in the Opening” by Onions and Regis is a good starting point.
Most young players seem to benefit from going through a phase of playing classical 19th century open games and gambits, to develop tactical ability and awareness of the importance of “the initiative”, but sooner or later it is important for an ambitious player to start playing main-line openings – there is usually a good reason why they are main lines!
When one starts to play a new opening, one can expect some early disasters, but these can be reduced by practising new openings in training games: at the chess club, at home against a friend or family member, on the Internet (5-10 minute games are OK for this), as well as playing through appropriate complete annotated games by good players.
Chess software
If you want to be good at anything, including chess, you need to practise regularly. It is possible to play against a computer programme, but most players find it more fun to play against another human being, since today’s programmes are so strong that they will always win (unless you handicap them in some way). Consequently, strong players these days tend to use chess programmes for their database and analysis functions, rather than as sparring partners. In my opinion the best chess programmes are the ones using the Fritz interface, produced by Chessbase: www.chessbase.com
Fritz has several uses, such as to:
1. provide a sparring partner of adjustable strength;
2. provide examples of excellent opening play (in the supplied database);
3. provide a database of instructive top-class games;
4. allow you to set up your own database for storing your child’s games;
5. allow you to ask Fritz to analyse and comment on your child’s games.
I also recommend the most recent versions of the Chessmaster programme; this contains good coaching material. (Similar material is also available on the Internet at http://chess.fm)
Playing chess on the Internet
There are many places to play chess on the Internet, and some of them are completely free. Others offer a free trial period. You just visit their website, download and install their playing software, invent a “handle” (playing name), seek an opponent, and off you go. Games are timed. (e.g. at 5 minutes each player, 10 minutes each etc.).
Playchess.com – free for 30 days, or for 12 months if you have a registered copy of the Fritz chess programme on your PC. www.playchess.com
Internet Chess Club (ICC) – by far the trendiest place to play chess on the Net – free trial. www.chessclub.com
Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) - completely free. www.freechess.org
Chess learning resources on the Internet
The Internet is a useful for resource for chessplayers, teachers and learners, but it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some resources I recommend include:
Why encourage junior chess anyway?
There is research from North America indicating that: