English Chess Forum

A local secondary school for the first time ever entered the Naional Schools events. The one snag was that they had no chess sets.
They played their first match on computers, and lost all games within 10 minutes. I think they would have been wiser spending the entry fee on sets but they presumably assumed the free sets would be arriving.

I actually have limited sympathy for a school that enter a chess competition when they don't have any chess sets - isn't that a little bit silly? but given that they did, perhaps it would have been worth asking the opposition to bring the chess sets?

Playing chess on computers sounds like a sensible innovation for primary school chess. No more illegal moves.

From the basics of the story it sounds as if the real question should not be "should you enter a national competition without sets?", but "should you enter a national competition before your players have learnt how to play the game?"

Their team was made up of year 7s who had (I presume) played chess at primary school. They did ask the opposition to bring boards, which they did do (but not sets).

Can schools play chess without chess sets?

Gerry Walsh is researching this