The Gambit – Is Chess Good for Schools?

Okay, if you have been reading my blog, or even just read the title block, you know where I am going to come down on this.  I teach chess in my son’s grade school.  Nonetheless, there are issues with teaching chess in schools:  promoting an elitist attitude, scaring kids off, and finding adults to help!  At the same time, there are alternative games that encourage some of the same thought processes. 

First of all, chess can be elitist.  There will be kids who join to prove they are smarter than everyone else.  Worse, there are parents who push their children into chess to prove to the world that their kid (and by extension, the parent) is smarter than everyone else.  I have been to conferences for gifted children where chess clubs were promoted specifically for gifted children, and I have mixed emotions about it.  Chess is a great way to provide more challenge to gifted child.  It doesn’t focus too much on one academic area, and doesn’t feel like “school work”.  Lastly, because chess is “the game of kings”, there are behavioral expectations that go with the game, including playing quietly and with self-control and good sportsmanship.  I worry about gifted children growing up to be “egg-heads” and lacking the softer, interpersonal skills that are so necessary for success at work and in relationships.*  I don’t want to see chess become the exclusive territory of the gifted, however.  “Normal” kids need fun mental challenges that help nurture the thinking processes and teach personal skills too.

Yet, so often (and maybe because of those gifted programs) those “normal” kids are scared by chess, feeling if they are not “smart enough” to play the game.  I frequently hear adults say this very thing; we should expect their kids to feel the same way.  This just isn’t the case.  Anyone can learn the game.  The child, or adult for that matter, may never be the next Bobby Fischer or Judit Polgár, but can love the game and get something out of it nonetheless.  I am a great example of this; I love chess and yet, with a rating in the low 1400’s, I am only a class C player.  I read chess books when I have the time, but honestly I don’t expect to even break into the B class at 1600.  Having fun is far more important than winning or even being a great player.  (Otherwise I wouldn’t game at all!)

Lastly, finding the adults who want to participate is difficult.  In the public school system for Columbus, OH, there has been an employee specifically hired by the district to provide those schools with a chess program.  That is by far the exception to the rule, and that completely leaves out private schools and small districts.  It’s sometimes tough to find adults to teach the gifted kids.  Finding someone to deal with the rest of the school population can be nearly impossible.

Nine Men's Morris - Promo image at Amazon

If chess proves to be too much of a problem, what can be done?  Don’t give up; start a gaming club instead.  There are plenty of classic, quick and relatively inexpensive games that are suited to teaching problem solving skills and sportsmanship.  A short list of abstract games would include Reversi (Othello), Mancala, Backgammon and Nine Men’s Morris.  These games do not need a teacher/coach who is familiar with the game.  The rules are more simple and straightforward and the strategy not as deep as chess.  

There actually are some advantages over a chess club with this approach.  First of all, younger kids can be included with games like checkers.  There are a lot of games that are variants on checkers, both more and less difficult.  As the kids get older, they could be introduced to pool checkers, which someday I would like to learn.  Furthermore, the list isn’t limited to just abstracts.  My wife has had great success playing 20 Questions for Kids as a team game with the after school program.  There are teachers running gaming clubs at schools who are playing some of the other types of games I discuss in this blog.

Games are so important to intellectual and social development that I think all kids should learn to play them.  If your school doesn’t have a chess program, consider a gaming program.  If there isn’t someone to start it, why not you?  If none of that is available, at least play at home.  If you keep playing and reading, I promise to keep writing!

It’s Your Move!

Related Posts:

Gaming Resources – BoardGameGeek: the Doorway to my Demise

Related Links:

Othello – Board Game Geek entry

Mancala – Board Game Geek entry

Nine Men’s Morris – Board Game Geek entry

Backgammon – Board Game Geek entry

20 Questions for Kids – Board Game Geek entry

Judit Polgár – Wikipedia entry

Bobby Fischer – Wikipedia entry

* A few years ago, it was suggested to my wife and me that our son might be gifted.  I am not sure how that actually is measured, but I do know that he is a straight-A student.  Our concern isn’t that he is provided an advanced curriculum to further advance his intellect, though that would be nice.  Our main concern is that he learns empathy, compassion, teamwork and leadership, growing up to be a productive citizen and a faith-filled man.  That’s our job as a parent.  In my engineering career, I have met lots of incredibly smart people who couldn’t lead hungry Boy Scouts to lunch, and can never see when someone is hurting.  That’s not who we are raising Daniel to be.

I am asking too much...

I have been listening to the Ludology Podcast to and from work.  There are several podcasts that I listen to regularly; this particular one is more of a once-in-a-while type of thing.  The topic was family games, and it ventured into a discussion on the developmental stages of children and what games work well at those stages.  I came to realize something in this podcast -- I am asking too much from my chess club kids.  Simply put, chess offers too many decisions with too many options that impact too many moves down the road for these kids, particularly the younger ones, to grasp.  I thought starting at 4th grade would allow for more cognitive ability, but I was wrong.  Some of the junior high kids should start to get it, but the younger ones, no.

I guess that really means I am a chess teacher, and not a chess coach.

It's Your Move!

Good Camping Game ≠ Good Scout Game

I spent the first half of this week at Boy Scout Summer Camp with our troop.  It was a great experience, despite the rain.  There is no better way to see how the future of our society will react to adversity than watching patient, yet determined young men (or women, your mileage may vary) work through mud, wet gear and soaked wood to build a fire in the pouring rain.  It makes me proud to think maybe I have some slight influence for good there.

Yet, all is not perfect.  One of the things I learned in the course of this week is that games that are good for camping, which I have discussed before, are not necessarily good for Scouts.  I had a deck of cards and several games with me at camp, three of which came out: Hive, Bandits, and one of my travel chess sets.  All were put to good use; putting them away was the issue.

Image by David Detwiler

Looking around the table, it was easy to see that playing cards were not given much respect.  In fact, the deck of playing cards that I brought had a few bent cards after just an hour.  I don’t particularly care about that; standard playing cards are cheap and easy to replace.  However, Bandits is a card game that uses its own cards, not standard cards, and would not be as easy to replace.  The game never really caught on in the gaming world, since it is a little simplistic and without a whole lot of choices.  Those facts make it great for young Scouts with little gaming experience; however, it also makes it a game that didn’t stay in print.  If I want it for future events, I need to keep it safe.  It went to bed when I did.

A took a bit more of a chance with my chess set.  Some of the boys were still up when I retired, and chess, unlike Bandits, is a well known game.  One of the new boys was playing, but with an older Scout, so I figured it would probably be okay.  I was wrong.  One knight was lost in the mud.  Since the pieces are less than a half inch tall, and the knight was maroon in color, it was never found.  The new Scout felt pretty badly, but disappointingly the older Scout was pretty cavalier about it.  I knew it was a risk, and I chose to take it, so I am not horribly upset.  I guess for each of those determined and patient Scout there is one who still needs work.  Well, they are boys after all.

Hive is always a huge hit! (Image by Richard van Vugt)

With Hive, I am taking an even bigger risk.  I left it at camp to be returned to me at next week’s troop meeting.  This game was once again a huge hit, and several more boys were introduced to it and loved it.  I left it with a new Scout, and left an older Scout to follow behind him.  The pieces are big and few in number, so I am confident I will get it all back.  Honestly, it was too good an opportunity to teach responsibility to one and leadership to another, so I couldn’t pass it up.  The senior Scout loves games, so I think he will place a little more value on the game coming back whole.

What makes a good Scout game?  First of all, it really needs to be fairly durable (or disposable), just as any other camping game.  Secondly, it really needs to have fairly simple rules.  Some of these boys find Egyptian Ratscrew, a variant of Slapjack, to be a good game, and that (along with Pokemon cards) may be the limit of their gaming experience.  A game like Pandemic may be asking too much, even if it is a good teamwork game.

I will be keeping a separate game bag for my Scout games.  What about you?  After all,

It’s Your Move!

P.S. - Yes, I know that right now Brandubh is also showing as a game I played recently.  I played it with one of the camp councilors.  Afterward I gave it to him, since they can never have too many games and they may need something to do on a rainy evening too.  It's an ancient game that can be made from a board printed on cardstock and aquarium stones.  Let me know if you are interested, and I can shoot you a copy.

Memorial Day Gaming - Aliens vs GameGeeks!

I was all set to do a series of reviews covering the games we played over the Memorial Day weekend.  There were new (well, new to us) games we were going to try as preparation for our gaming group.  It never happened.

As it turns out, work around the house on Saturday meant travelling late to see my wife’s family on Sunday.  By the time that gathering was over, about the time the games come out, I was falling asleep.  Watching Pirates of the Caribbean was all I could muster up.  I was prepared for a shut-out when we finally managed to get in a game early yesterday afternoon.  Funny though – I doubt it’s a good game for the group.

Image by Jesus Perez

My wife’s brother, who is my most regular gaming partner, joined my son and me in a game of Space Hulk: Death Angel - The Card Game.  This is a spin-off of the classic Space Hulk, but done as a multi-player cooperative game rather than a head-to-head match.  Think of the movie Aliens played out as a game, and you have the theme down.  It’s an American style game in a co-op format, which I have not seen before.  The first and only game we played was a little rough.  I did follow my rules for learning/teaching a game outlined about a month ago in a previous post.  Nonetheless, the first time was definitely a learning game.  It nearly always pays off to play a first game with a few willing test subjects even after being fully prepared.  Lesson re-learned.  Death Angel had enough special character powers and rules exceptions that even my first solo play through did not hit everything.

I am not ready to give a verdict on this game.  My 13yo son has given it a thumbs-up, and I am leaning that way for casual adult gamers, but I am not sure about families.  While it will certainly appeal to testosterone-laden boys, those with less aggressive tendencies may not like it.  I really need a couple of smooth plays to decide this.  I will let you know.

In the meantime,

It’s Your Move!

Chess and the End of the School Year

We ended this year's incarnation of the chess club this week.  As much as I love the kids and I love chess, I am glad this is over for the year.  It does get tiring to keep these things going.  There are several healthy tensions that cause this, and finding the right course through them is where the effort comes in to play.  These tensions are somewhat about the differences between my expectations for the club and the kid’s expectations.  They are:

• Teaching vs playing
• Basic skills vs more advanced skills
• Motivation vs discouragement
• Accessibility vs focus

I once asked the kids how many of them wanted to read books on chess.  The answer was no one did.  I brought my modest chess library in, and even managed to avoid the word “study”, but nonetheless there were no takers.  In fact, on a day to day basis, the kids would just as soon I never teach.  They would rather play.  It doesn’t matter whether it is something specific – say an opening – or something very general, like being more aggressive.  The boys and girls would rather just play. 

What aggravates this problem are the various levels of knowledge the kids have when they arrive at the beginning of the year.  They either don’t know anything or are an expert player – just ask them!  In reality, there are several different levels of play going on at the same time, and with only two people who are instructing (my wife and me), it just doesn’t work.  At a minimum, you have three levels:

1. Kids who know nothing about chess, but want to learn,
2. Beginners,  who can move the pieces, but have no knowledge of tactics or strategy,
3. Relatively experienced players, who know a little more and need more of a challenge.

It would be easy to think that you could hold off the second group until the first group catches up, but in reality the first group needs to be constantly monitored to be sure they are moving legally.  It takes one adult just to do that.  (I had one girl – I will call her Sally – that said she knew how to play when she came at the beginning of the year, but still was making basic movement mistakes at the end.)

Sally also highlighted the third issue very clearly for me.  Most of the kids want to compete.  Late in the year, we started a chess ladder, which is a method of ranking within a group mathematically too small to use a regular rating system with.  Most of the kids liked it.  It provided motivation to improve, and might have even brought them to the point of being willing to learn lessons to get better.  I started it too late to find out.  Sally, though, was reduced to tears because she never won a game.  I suspect this would have been swept under the rug without the chess ladder.

Lastly, anyone who has read this blog knows I want the club to be accessible.  However, I am starting to feel as though there may need to be pressure to “get in or get out”.  There were too many kids that just showed up a few times.  It sometimes felt like it was dependent on whether or not after-school care was appealing that day or not.  I think being a little less open would concentrate the group to those who, well, want to concentrate!   Maybe a few kids on the fence would be left out, but the total value of the experience would go up for those kids who are in the club.

There are two adjustments my wife and I are planning for next year.  The smaller adjustment will be dues of some type.  This forces a commitment from the kids and their parents.  It will also allow us to purchase some supplies, like a few chess clocks, bags for pieces and boards, and notebooks/score sheets for the kids.  We have to think about the right amount, but there will be some dues nonetheless.

The big adjustment has to do with a chess curriculum bought through our Home and School Association.  (Our private school version of the PTA.)  We picked the Championship Chess program, having met the founder at an educational conference at the beginning of the school year.  I can’t endorse it yet, since we have to plan out next year with it.  I do have some reservations, particularly about the lessons on chess openings.  However, there seems to be far more good than potential bad.  Furthermore, it has DVDs, and two very specific benefits related to them.  Firstly, the program is designed through the DVDs to allow non-chess playing adults to present material.  Secondly, it allows the one or two kids who are older and uniquely experienced to work on their own.

The end result is that I have my homework for the summer.  I need to digest this program and figure out how to present it in a way that fits my kids.  That will give me some ideas on when and how much I want to close the doors, which in turn will help me set dues.  As I move forward I will keep you informed.  Some of you might be curious, and one of two of you readers might have kids in the club next year!

It’s Your Move!

Well, I guess not this time!

Helping Hands

Sadly out of print (image by Patrick Carroll)

This weekend I was talking to one of my cousins about playing games with his three-year old.  They are playing the classics: Candyland and the like.  It brought back memories of Clue: Little Detective played before bed time with Daniel, my now 13 year-old.  I remember the beginning being about teaching him a basic game mechanism: draw a card, play a card.

Of course, that's fine with Clue: Little Detective, since you aren't holding a full hand of cards. Managing a hand of cards becomes one of the first game playing skills a child learns.  Small hands have a tough time though, particularly with standard sized cards.

Enter the card holder.  They come in two main variations.

Promotional image from Gamewright Games.

Most card holders commonly found in teacher's store and the like are a variation on a theme: two disks fastened together so that cards slide between them.  Sometimes they are just a half circle, sometimes they have evolved into having a handle attached such as the ones from Gamewright Games above.  These work great.  The best part is that the cards are displayed in the natural fan of an adult holding cards, so the rest of the card handing habits are formed.

Sunnywood rack promotional image

The second type is more like a tile rack.   This type isn't held in the hand, but rather set on the table.  This isn't so great for little ones, since it doesn't allow for teaching things like holding your hand where it can't be seen, and laying it down face-down when its time to go potty. Where it has it's advantages is at the other end of the age spectrum, where holding anything in the fingers for very long might cause arthritis pain.  Cards are self standing and fully on display to the player.

As it is, we have a set of the first type (literally two disks fastened together), and I am about to purchase two of the second type.  No, I don't have arthritis, but there are games where having the cards up where I can see them while my two hands are doing other things would be very convenient.  This is particularly true in games where the cards have a lot of text on them.  The first game that comes to mind is War of the Ring, but historical card driven war games like For the People (the American Civil War) or political games like 1960: The Making of the President would be helped too.  On a more casual game level, I can see using them for themed variants of Risk, like the copy of Risk: Star Wars - Clone War Edition we have.

We need more Star Wars movies so we can have more great games like these! (Photo by Rich Chamberlain)

Getting some type of card holder is almost essential if you have little ones running around your house, either as parents or grandparents.  The opportunity for family bonding is something to start early, and those before-bed game sessions, short though they be, have the same effect as reading to a child.  The biggest difference is that you can involve more of the family.

It's Your Move!

Pecking Order

We finished the school chess club tournament last week – sort of. I had roughly 13 kids playing each other to figure out the pecking order and establish a chess ladder. It’s late in the year to be doing this, but it finally dawned on me that the reason the kids don’t want to learn chess is that they have no real sense of competition. A chess ladder will establish a ranking, and each child can compete to improve his or her ranking.

However, there are kids with different abilities and patience, which results in different lengths of games. As a result, this tournament was threatening to stretch out for the remainder of the year; something that just wouldn’t do. Our spring break is tied to Easter, so I decided that was a good break point at which to end the tournament. Unfortunately, I had kids who had played as few as five games, and some who had played as many as ten. How should I rank them?

I used a traditional scoring method for the games: 1 point for a win, 0 points for a loss, and a ½ point to each player for a draw or stalemate. From that, I could compute the average number of points per game for each child, effectively normalizing the data to one game. Now I had points/game for everyone, ranging from 0.80 pts/g to 0.0 pts/g. Ranking came pretty easily, as the first three slots were unique numbers.

Lewis Chess Queen (Finlay McWalter)

What did I learn from all of this? I learned three things, two of which are significant:

• Do this at the beginning of the year to provide motivation for everyone. This will also show where the children fall out in terms of “chess education”.
• Chess clocks would be a great help. A 10 minute per game limit would allow for two games per player per week (we meet for an hour) with sufficient time for clean-up.
• Less importantly, it is amazing how many stalemates show up in games at this level! The kids tend to promote pieces to Queens, and then are shy about moving right up against the King and putting the King in check! The result of two Queens and a Rook attacking timidly is very often a stalemate, just because the attacked King has nowhere to go!

 I am getting better as a chess club leader every year. Then again, as long as the kids are having fun and learning, I guess it is all working out! 

It’s Your Move!

A Second Chance at a First Impression

Earlier this week I briefly mentioned the fact that our gaming group didn’t play 7 Wonders because I was doing a poor job teaching it. I actually called off the game before getting through the explanation because I really didn’t know my stuff. We played a game we already knew and everyone had fun. I hate to think how dreadful the situation might have become if I had pressed on. I could have soured everyone on 7 Wonders. As it is, the game may still become a favorite because I stopped. It can be hard to admit, but the explanation of a game can make or break the whole experience, and possibly even permanently move a game to the back of the game closet.
Since this is so crucial, how does one go about teaching a game? Everyone develops their own method over time, but I do think there are three critical phases that are needed. Within each phase there are more variations, but I personally have three steps within each phase, leading me to the Three-On-Three Method.
The first phase is Study. Long before the game session is to begin, you, as the Game Explainer needs to:

1. Become intimately familiar with the parts of game. This starts with unpacking. If the game is being unsealed, this is a great time to punch and bag any counters and cards. (I wrote about card storage a little while ago.) Use this time to take a look at all of the game components; this will make reading the rules clearer.
   
2. Read the rules – several times. This may seem to be obvious and overkill, but many rules aren’t written as clearly as they should be. This is particularly true when the game was developed someplace else in the world; something literally may be lost in the translation. Take a second look at the game components as you read.
   
3. Play the game solitaire. Look at the range for the number of players, and set up the game for somewhere in the middle of that range. Play several turns of each player, until the flow of the game is well understood. As an example, 7 Wonders is a game for 2-7 players, so I will set up for four players and play the game myself. (Hey, I said I didn’t know my stuff, didn’t I?)

After these steps, it is time to Setup. It’s Game Day, so:

1. Before everyone comes to the table, set the game up for the correct number of players. This way everyone will be set up correctly, and all of the components will be out where they can be seen in reference to the game board and players.
   
2. Teach the game in layers, becoming more detailed as you go. (Discourage questions until you are through.) Give the storyline for the game; often this can be read from the back of the box or beginning of the rules. Explain the overall objective and victory conditions. Then review the board and components and their role in the game. However, do not explain every detail; keep it to the general effect on the game. Then, discuss what a player will do on their turn. Provide a little more detail, but not every bit.
   
3. Answer relatively simple questions. Often, they will be explained in the next phase. Stay on track and keep moving towards the next phase as quickly as possible.

Lastly, it’s time to play a Sample Game. Have everyone play a few turns, during which:

1. Their options can be explored as a group. This lets everyone see how choosing an option plays out, and the short term impact of the choice. Long term impacts, if they are at all understood, can be discussed.
   
2. Details of the components can be explained, including any symbols used. In particular, cards might be used in multiple ways, and each of these ways can be talked about.
   
3. The game should slowly be turned over to players. This is when the last finicky details can be added. For example, if the conditions that end the game are different than the victory conditions, they can be explained here. In Ticket to Ride, the end of the game is triggered by any one player having only two of their 45 markers left. At that point, play goes one more time around the table. Explaining this a few turns into the game provides more context, and is better understood without impact to someone’s strategy.

At this point, you have taught the game. I will generally suggest to my group, particularly in a longer game, that we start over after a few more turns. Everyone should have the flow of the game down, and starting over can erase any really ugly strategic mistakes. If we will probably get multiple plays in that day, we tend to finish the sample game, ignoring the win and chalking it up to a “learning experience”. Then we get more serious.
If the Game Explainer is already a long-time veteran player of the game being introduced, the Study phase can clearly be dropped. The point is to know the subject. Time in class can be traded for experience! However, teaching a new game well will always take some extra effort.
Now it is time for me to follow my own advice. I need to grab 7 Wonders off the shelf and not only become more familiar with the components, but play a solo game too. Until next time…

It’s Your Move!

Cheat Sheets

I am a big advocate of cheat sheets for games.  No, I am not talking about secret ways to win.  I am talking about rules summaries.  After all, who really likes to wade through rules to a game?  Furthermore, some games have longer rule books.   Pandemic, for instance has an eight page rule book.  One whole page is a setup diagram, one a sample turn, and there are lots of helpful illustrations, so it’s not really an outlandish amount of rules.  However, since they are spread out over eight pages, looking to verify a specific rule during the game, or even just reviewing the rules quickly before teaching the game, isn’t particularly easy.

Enter the game cheat sheet.  Really, there are two kinds.  The first are what are typically called player aids, which prompt the player for the phases of their turn, or provide other useful information.  I will cover these down the road.  The other type is the rules summary, which are attempts to boil the rules down to their essence.  In many ways, a rules summary is the equivalent of highlighting the rules, though highlighting alone has two issues.  First of all, the rulebook is now permanently marked up, which is ugly, and lessens the value of the game should you ever decide to eBay it.  Secondly, it doesn’t alleviate the problem of having to flip pages to find that rule you’re trying to verify.  There are two ways to obtain summaries: make them or download them.

Making a rules summary is much the same as any summary, but I do have two particular ways of going about it.  The first way is to photocopy or download a copy of the rules.  (Rules can typically be found at the publisher’s website.)  Highlight that copy, and then gather all of the highlights into one page.  Pretty simple.  In fact, I am sure I didn’t tell you anything new there.

The second way creates what I refer to as a turn sequence, and is a hybrid of the player aid and rules summary.  These are particularly useful in solitaire or two player games with more involved turns, like wargames.  Often these rulebooks are 10+ pages long.  For many of these games there is a section in the rules that gives a high level turn sequence.  I copy that and then add more levels of detail in an outline form, with references to the relevant rules section.  As an example, the one I created for Silent War, a solitaire WWII submarine warfare game, can be found here.

Before I go to that trouble, though, I will typically check for summaries online, for instance on BoardGameGeek (BGG).  (I talked about BGG a few posts ago.)  On the page for that game, there is a section called files.  There will be lots of stuff that fans of the game have created to support game play, including game summaries.

Often you will find summaries by an individual I only know by his/her penname: Universal Head.  This person makes great summaries using artwork from the game, so the summaries are aesthetically pleasing too.  Not only are these summaries on BGG, but Universal Head maintains a website that lists them all at Headless Hollow.  Check them out!

The level of effort required to print, or even make and print a rules summary pays off over a brief amount of time.  I love them; they are just so handy.  Next game you purchase, find or create a game summary.  Then please share with me what game you purchased and how you obtained your summary.  Until then,

It’s your move!

Knightly Devotions

This is my third year of teaching chess in our son’s grade school. Contrary to what I expected, it gets tougher every year. While I have some great ideas I have received from others who have run scholastic chess programs, they are only partially helpful. Many of those programs are aimed at competition, and we just aren’t there. In fact, I have learned there are at least three big obstacles to starting a scholastic chess club: the emotional maturity of the child, the level of chess knowledge they come with, and when they join during the school year.

First of all, let me say that our school chess club is based upon the idea that chess is a classic ability everyone should know, improving logic and problem solving skills and promoting sportsmanship. Subsequently, no one is ever turned away. This principle is largely responsible for this set of problems, so I realize I have made my own bed.

That said, the administration agreed with me at the beginning of the year that primary school children in general would not have the ability to sit still and play chess. Therefore, a child has to be in fourth grade to join. Since the primary is in a separate wing of the school, being “beyond the double doors” has meaning akin to a rite of passage. Using this existing distinction to define the privilege of joining the chess club is accepted more easily. This is not a hard and fast filter; we admitted a second grader based on faculty recommendation and consultation. This boy has shown he already knows how the pieces move and he is focused. At the same time, a fourth grade girl who has been with us all year apparently has not yet learned how all the pieces move. There is some suspicion she is pretending to be confused to gain attention. Even some of the older students cannot remain quiet, and must be reminded they are disturbing other players’ thoughts. The noise and distraction get in the way of teaching, even for the mere ten to fifteen minutes I would like, just as they would in the classroom. Even when a lesson manages to slip in, the difference in maturity shows. Younger players are less likely to move center pawns out early, even when instructed repeatedly. It seems the younger children shy away from the kind of confrontation early center play can start.

Another obstacle is the variation in the children’s “chess maturity”. I currently have students that have never played the game before this year, and I have students that have been in the chess club all three years. Their needs are obviously different. My wife is the school librarian, and acts as the faculty advisor to the group. She is willing to take the new learners and teach them the moves. Our idea at the beginning of the year was that we could divide the group between us, with me teaching the next level of play. However, it has become apparent there are at least three groups that need attention. There are those learning the moves, those learning very basic concepts (control the center of the board, protect the king), and finally the students who are looking at somewhat more advanced ideas (doubled rooks, bad bishops). As this goes forward, I suspect there will be more differentiation.

Add to this the constant inflow of new students to the club, and we sometimes take two steps forward and one step back. It can be a bit frustrating, but I will firmly stand by the commitment to teach anyone who wants to learn, even teachers who show up! More volunteers would be great, but very few people can come in after school.

Most of the chess programs I have seen that are highlighted in the news, or who write about their success, are based on the idea that they will take students who are already chess players and take them to tournaments. There we see the best and brightest. We are far from that goal, though I would love to be able to do that, but my group of kids is just not there yet.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know. What qualifies me as a chess coach for the school is not any great ability to teach, and obviously (if you have been checking out my chess rating on the left) not any fantastic skill in chess. I am just the guy who said “yes”. I would love to hear thoughts on how to make it a better chess experience for all.

Roll on!

Gaming – Opening Moves

My re-acquaintance with boardgaming came about four years ago when my son received a copy of Ticket to Ride for Christmas. I had received a copy of Lord of the Rings before that, when the movies were in the theatres, but my own prejudices had kept me from playing it. With Ticket to Ride, I started down the path into the gaming hobby.
We had our share of mass-market games on our shelves: Monopoly, Balderdash, Taboo and Uno. There were also children’s games like Hi, Ho Cherry-O! After playing Ticket to Ride and then Settlers of Catan, I started looking for other games, and stumbled upon the BoardGameGeek website. This website supports an online community of gamers around the globe. With around 50,000 games in the database, it opens up the boardgaming world. After joining in January 2008, I have used this site to find games I love, received answers to questions on rules, and thoroughly enjoyed the hobby beyond just playing games.
Most of my friends and family, though, do not share this passion. Many of them play casually, socially, and it is for them (and you!) that I write this blog. The question many ask is, “What would be a good game for my family and friends to play now and then?”
The first step is to figure out what you have and start playing! Monopoly, Risk and Trivial Pursuit, amongst other commonly found games, can make for memorable evenings even if they are not everyone’s favorite game. (Did you know that stealing is not against the rules in Monopoly? I found out the hard way, and we still tell the story in our family!) As you play, you will start to see what types of games are better for you family. Are there little ones in the family? How much confrontation can the game have before tempers flare? How long can the game be and still keep everyone interested? How complex can it be?
It sounds complicated, but that’s why I am here. In fact, I am going to open up this topic with my first, all-purpose, suggestion: Forbidden Island. It is a cooperative game, which means all players are team up against the workings of the game. For most people, this is a completely new concept, but it is becoming more popular in the gaming world. Players form a team of adventurers, looking to recover ancient artifacts. A long-dead civilization placed these mystical items on the island to keep them from falling into the hands of enemies, and with safeguards in place to keep the artifacts from being taken. Once someone sets foot upon Forbidden Island, it begins to sink into the sea. The players must recover the artifacts and fly off the island before it sinks to win the game. Each player has a unique role on the team, and a corresponding ability, which will help the group in its efforts. Using these different abilities effectively is critical to win, and keeps the game fresh.
This game plays in 30 minutes with up to four players of nearly any age. Because everyone is playing as a team, children can be coached by parents within the spirit and rules of the game. Kids don’t feel like “the loser”, since everyone wins or loses together. It is certainly not a “kid’s game” though; adults will find themselves challenged to win. Forbidden Island will certainly promote a lot of group interaction without confrontation (though there might be some passionate debates!). The artwork and game pieces are wonderful, and it comes in a nice tin box. It is priced very reasonably, and shouldn’t be too hard to find. Bookstore chains were carrying it at Christmas, and online gaming stores will have it in stock.

In upcoming posts I will discuss Ticket to Ride and other good games to start your play.
Roll On!