Indoor Recess

A student across the hall has been sort of nagging me for a game of chess all year, so during today's indoor recess he came over and we sat down to play. To my pleasant surprise he had a solid grasp of the basics. He knew the relative value of the pieces and didn't bat an eye when I castled queenside, both good signs.  Honestly I've had so many kids brag about how "they beat their dad" only to find they don't actually know all the rules of the game that I've become a bit jaded. I've had the opportunity to play against some extremely talented young players, so I have no illusions about whether or not a seven year is capable of beating me, but that's going to be a sign the child either has some unusual natural talent or is probably already playing other adults at a tournament level. I used to coach some successful youth chess teams and at this point if a kid isn't ready to take the game rather seriously I'm actually not interested in devoting much time to sitting down with them. If they want to learn something, great. If they want to compete, well then they need to be good enough to be competitive. If they just want to push the pieces around, I'd rather play a different game. Unsurprisingly, most kids (and their parents) don't really know which of these camps they fall into.

As it turns out I have a student in my class who appears to be at about the same level as the fellow next door. I got them to play each other, and although a review of the position above will suggest they are still just getting the hang of things, it was nice to see them making a connection across the board. With any luck I can get them playing more often.