How To Teach Your Kids To Play Chess

Date:  Aug 4, 2014

Learning to play chess cannot be easy.  The older you are, the more chances you learn it well.

Children at young age sometimes cannot learn how the play it well.

So, the question is “How do you train them to play chess?"

As usual, I can google it.

Or, I can “Amazon” it.

As expected, when you key this in the search field, a bunch of things came up.

So, I bought this latest board game for my sons.

http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves-1091-Stress-Chess/dp/B0007Q1IO4

It cost about USD$14.49 for the game.  (not inclusive of shipping cost)

It is called “No Stress Chess"

It is suitable for 7 years old.  But in my opinion even a 5 years old also can play.  The game can be quite fast too with a little bit of luck.

And “It really works!”  

What really works again?

Yes, it really works!  And the kids can start picking up and know how to play chess in no time.

For those who learned how to move, it helped them by drilling them so not to make wrong move.  Think fast.  And it is very interesting. 

Let’s turn to the back and see what it says.

If you learn chess the traditional way, there are simply just too much info you need to learn.

So, this “No Stress Chess” take away that massive learning curve, and focus in drilling one to learn how each piece moves.

You no need to think which chess piece to move.  You simply draw a card and let the card decide what is your next move.

This is a great product and I strongly recommend it.

This is how it unbox.  A 2-sided chess board, an instruction paper, and a deck of cards, with a card stands to place your cards.

Let’s take a look at each card you draw.  

This is the Bishop card.  When you draw this card, you can only move your Bishop.  If cannot move at all?  then, you lose a turn.

The King card.

The Knight card.

The Pawn card.

The Queen card.

The Rook card.

There are six of this card.  If your last card is Knight, and your opponent last card is a Pawn, if you draw this card, you can choose to move either the Knight or the Pawn.

This is a special joker card.

This is the chess board.  So, to play, you must place your pieces acceding to this.  The 1 and 2 is the most common move in the chess game where your Pawn is moved in the position to protect each other.

This is the instruction of Level One playing with the card and chess together.

When you take the card, it tells you which chess piece to move, and how you move it.

To win, you must capture the opponent’s King.  

You must move all the time.

One of the unique feature is, you can take a chance of exposing your chess pieces to possible capture in the hopes your opponent won’t draw a card picturing a piece he can move to capture yours.

This is the fun part.

You can actually move your Queen to “attack” opponents King by getting very near to the King.  And of course, they could be pawns, or Knights guarding the King.  But they don’t get to capture your Queen unless your opponent really draw a Knight or Pawn.

That means any one can win as there is a strong “Luck” component in there.

Let’s play a game to demonstrate this.

First card, Jay Jay draws a Bishop.

So, he moves his Bishop to the “Checking” position.  But he has to draw another Bishop when it is his turn in order to win.

Very fortunate,I draw a King card.  Which mean I can move my King.

So, I move the King up so that I can escape the checking by the Bishop.

Too bad.  Jay’s next card is a Rook.

So, Jay cannot move any where with any of his Rooks.  So, he is considered as lost one turn.

Oh dear, my next move is the King again.  How unlucky.

It is impossible for me to go back to the original position, as the White Bishop is going to check me there.  So, I have to move on, and move forward.

Remember, you have to move the chess piece if there are moves left.

Later he took a Rook.  And lost another turn.

I took a Pawn card, and I move my Pawn.  

Then, he also took a Pawn, and how unlucky, he capture my Pawn that I just moved.  And now, he is in checking position.

Wow, that is bad.  His pawn is checking me.

How unluckily, I took a rook card, again, I lost a turn as I cannot move my Rook at all.

He draw the next card.  

Guess what he has drawn?

Yup!  He got another Pawn card.

How lucky of him.

How lucky of him capturing my King!

Neh Neh Poo Poo.  This is how my son win me in his first No Stress Chess game with his old man.

And it only takes 9 cards to capture my King.

I will win the next game!

Next game it went thru many steps.

Because you don’t get to choose your next move.  The card will decide which chess piece to move.  So, it gives me a lot of chance to teach Jay how to think logically, and play make sense chess game.

Rule #1 - If can eat, must eat!

Rule #2 - If can eat big, must eat big big!

Rule #3 - If nothing to eat, move to the place to see where you can eat next.

Rule #4 - If nothing to eat, move to the place to see where you can eat big big.

Wah… It suppose not to be a stress game wor...

Jay really learned fast.

At first, he always forgot to capture my chess pieces.  He always say, aiya, you are blocking me (*where he can actually capture my chess piece).  Wahaha

Later, Kay Kay also come and play.  

And I see that somebody is putting on his Thinking Cap.

No one is sure win.

Because the game play depend on luck too.

And we don’t remember how many games we play, but we just keep playing, and the kids keep become better and better.