The problems with junior chess

[William Metcalfe]

Thanks David we only have 1 other unior in the club he is aged 15 but is not in the same league playing wise they do play together occasionally but as the 15 year old is newish to chess we do not want him disencouraged by constantly getting beaten by a 9 /10 year old.
Mind you his school does have a good junior section and he plays a lot of junior tournaments he played 1 two weeks ago some east of england thing he won it with 4.5 out of 5 and had to play kids aged 14 to 16 lol.
As to the tactics he has books and i gave him links to web sites like chess kids so he practises those at home but we also do things at the club with him.It is hard to get the right ballance between learning and fun but we try our best to get it right we as a club are also learning for the next time this happens.If we get a reputation as a club that welcomes and encourages juniors hopefully we will get more to join the club.
My aim 1 day is to be able to enter a team made up of 4 juniors and 1 adult driver in a league.Its a long way off at the moment but is a good goal to aim for

[adam_hunt]

Hi Richard,

Do you think it's impossible to teach the step by step method in school chess clubs as they are now? I understand and have experienced the fact that most of the kids want to play proper games, but if you get the motivational tools right, whether it be medals, prizes, ratings or a ladder system then I think it can work. I have certainly embraced the method and the kids are happy to be working through the booklets and small games at different speeds with differing degrees of success.

[Steve Rooney]

William, it sounds like you are providing good support and encouragement to your junior. We have two junior teams in our league and one thing that has helped is that the league agreed that all their matches would be at home which means they don't finish quite so late. Obviously this requires the league officials and club captains to support the concept but then they need to be behind the initiative anyway. There always a few adults reluctant to play young juniors, but we found that most of them are really supportive when they know what you are trying to achieve. Club members only have to look around the room to see that unless more juniors get involved in club chess, it doesn't have a future.

Adam, have you used the Dutch step method as-is, or modified it for your own use. We initially produced some materials of our own because to be honest we weren't aware of the Dutch system or sure which one to adopt.

[Rob Thompson]

In my league, my school enters teams in all divisions (though Div 1 was only set up this year and we are the weakest team, for sure). There is also a junior team for Div 3 (4 boards under 480) at one of the clubs, which means that any junior wanting to play can play league chess.

[Richard James]

We have a fairly promising junior who is aged 10 this is what we are doing with him if anybody has any other ideas i would like to hear them.
When he comes down to the club he might play the odd game off skittles but then 1 off the stronger players will sit with him and show him general principles of a opening or end game principles.

We have lots of internal club competitions so he has entered those so he gets to play v adults regularaly the players he is playing are obv not the strongers players in the club but he is getting serious competative games.

We also have a local league these games are not ECF graded but he is playing the whole season for this team as it will teach him about team dynamics in chess ect.

He played his first adult tournament yesterday it was a 5 round quickplay torny he won 2 drew 2 lost 1 and had a great time.

I think we are doing things the right way he is getting coaching.playing competative games.And more importantly having fun and enjoying himself.

I was talking with his father yesterday his school work,confidance,social skills have all improved since he came to the club 6 months ago and for me that is more important than the chess side of this.

Hi William

Sounds like you're doing a great job. Playing against adults is important for promising and ambitious young players. It would also be good to make sure he is aware of the major national junior tournaments. Some of these are selection tournaments for the England U11 team run by the English Primary Schools Chess Association (EPSCA). If you contact Peter Purland he will be able to give you more information on this.

[Richard James]

I think sometimes we try too hard.
Children will keep on playing chess if they enjoy it.
And they enjoy it if they win games.
That, I think, is the basis of the success of UKCC and many other junior activities.

When running a junior club I found that trying to do more than 5 minutes training in the hour put the children off. What they wanted to do was play chess, particularly if it was in a competition where they could win things. This is obviously an over simplification and some children are not like that.

I have been astounded at how popular my secondary school chess club has become since introducing a chess ladder. Every lunchtime 40 to 50 of them turn up to play, mainly year 7 and 8 but some from older year groups, including quite a few sixth formers, and year 10s doing 'improving chess' for their DoE bronze award. The large numbers has allowed me to run five 6-board school chess teams this year (we had a 24 board match on Friday). The little training I do is on Friday when we I run 'chess squad' at lunchtime and we look at problems on the interactive white board. [Those who want more training arrange for it outside school.)

Secondary school leagues have unfortunately almost died, apart from here in Surrey where 15 schools take part, with a total of 32 teams (each of 6 players). It does require a significant time commitment of about 4 hours from an adult (normally a teacher) on a Friday evening, and unlike when I was young, the ability to drive a minibus. The vast majority of teams are from selective schools, either state grammar schools or independent schools.

Something not mentioned yet in this thread is how inter-county U18/U14 chess has almost died in much of the country, apart from the annual NYCA and ECF events. I think the SCCU U14/U140 tournament may be the only place where inter-county junior matches between two teams take place in an organised way. Most Union U18 Jamborees get only 2 or 3 entries, if they occur. Some counties solve the problem by playing juniors in county matches, which is great for those who are good enough for at least the U100 and can cope with a 4 hour game.

Getting secondary aged students playing inter-club chess can, as Kevin stated, lead to rapid improvement and also means they are more likely to play chess later in life. I know that it was also crucial for myself and friends at school. But finding a suitable club is not easy. So I entered teams from what had been a junior club in two local leagues. One advantage of this is being part of a team of people they have been playing chess with for many years.

There are obviously other activities that encourage juniors to play chess (junior and adult tournaments, 4NCL, now junior 4NCL) but I think for the vast majority of juniors it is getting them playing chess, not coaching them, that is important.

Hi Neill

I was hoping you'd post on here. I think there have actually been some positive signs in the past couple of years of a slight upturn in chess at secondary school level. What you are doing, both at Wilson's and at Castles, seems exemplary in encouraging children of that age to play chess. The other person who seems to be doing a great job working in a very different environment is Charles W Wood, who sadly has not been seen on this forum recently. I hope he'll be able to post here and provide more information about what's happening in Bradford.

I have a few questions for you:

1. To what extent do you think your school is successful in promoting an interest in chess is because it is selective? Would you see the same sort of thing working as well in a comprehensive school? How important is it to have a member of staff who is a strong and active player?

2. It strikes me that there are so many other demands on young people's time and so many other leisure choices they could make. Do you think there might be some way of producing some proof of having achieved a high level in chess (say, 2000 ELO as a random figure) that would impress universities and employers? Could this perhaps also be the top level of the Certificate of Merit scheme?

3. You mentioned students doing chess for the DoE. Over the years we had a couple of RJCC members doing this. They really weren't interested, though, only going through the motions, and I signed their card just to keep them happy and help them pass. A couple of years ago, however, one of our members helps us with teaching at RJCC for his DoE. This worked very well and he was inspired by his experiences to consider teaching as a career. Perhaps it might be beneficial if the DoE people could come up with something rather more precise and focussed than 'improving chess'?

4. How do you get your members at Castles to play in the Surrey League? The whole subject of playing on weekday evenings is totally out of bounds as far as parents in Richmond are concerned. Parents of younger children say they're too young and parents of older children say they have too much homework. When we ran junior teams we played our home matches on Fridays, which was also difficult because many of our players were taking part in the Surrey Schools League. We tried to arrange as many of our away matches as possible during school holidays, but then we found a lot of our players were away skiing or whatever. Eventually we had to fill the team with adults and gave up the idea of getting juniors playing in Thames Valley League matches.

Yes, I think that, certainly in Secondary Schools, the focus must be mostly on playing. In junior clubs like RJCC you can do more coaching. At some point I'll write about the system we used there. Primary Schools are different in that they have to learn the basics before they can really play. The problem is with children who have been taught the moves at home, and think, mistakenly, that they can play.

[Richard James]

"I really know nothing about coaching young juniors but I am sure it is right to teach them the moves and rules in stages. At least, that's how I learnt, at six or seven. First the pawns, then the knights, bishops and rooks, with various exercises in between. Could a rook take four pawns? and so on, all before I got to queens and kings, castling and checkmate."

Yes - quite right. I learned to play when I was 3 - my father was playing through a game in a book and I asked what he was doing and then I said "show me". He did as described above, except he started with the knight - he later said it is the most interesting piece and the most difficult. After the initial "how it moves", you can put the knight in the middle of the board, then the edge and then the corner, and put pawns on the squares it can move to - and you learn about piece activity. After moves of pieces, there were checkmates, forks, skewers, discovered attacks, (double checks were particularly exciting), Q v 8P, R v 8P etc, (to teach relative strengths of pieces,), etc. When we eventually reached the start position, (some months later), I knew I wanted to get the opposing king, so it is then fairly obvious that you move central pawns to get the pieces out. My father also taught the general principle, knights before bishops, castle, centralise rooks, dominate the centre etc. It's nice to see that at one stage I was better than Carlsen and Aronian...

I think this is the best teaching method - obviously it helped that my father was a fairly good player himself, and a good communicator.

If you try to teach people from the start position, it is way too complicated, and they don't know why you need to move central pawns first. (Of course after a while you realise you don't have to go 1.e4 or 1.d4 first - but it is like school chemistry teaching, you are given a simplistic model of indivisible atoms at first, then later learn that it isn't true!)

I still see young players move a knight two squares up and one across, instead of going in a straight line. I have been arbiting some young junior events, and am really shocked that these are supposed to be the best players in their age group in the region, and games are going 1.h4 a5, 2.h5, or after 20 moves and 5 minutes, both sides have the kingside at home, and don't have a queenside at all, apart from a lone knight that has survived. I also notice some cannot win with Q+R vs King, just play hundreds of queen checks, never move the king and then lose the rook ..... (In fairness in one such game, when they agreed the draw both players smiled and went away happily chatting to each other, so at least they enjoyed it. But should they be playing competitively if they can't win games like that...?)
I haven't found a book which gives detail of how to win with queen against king, normally the position one move from mate is given. I can't be bothered to write the book myself, so perhaps Richard will take that position back a dozen moves?

Hi Kevin

I agree with most of what you say. Thank you for pointing out the very low standard of chess among young players. Someone on another thread a couple of months ago, I seem to recall, suggested that average primary school players were about 70 strength. I really don't think so.

You are quite right to question whether children who can't mate with QR v K should be playing competitive chess at all. The problem I have with the UKCC and, to a lesser extent, I suppose, with EPSCA and other junior chess organisations, is that they encourage children to play competitive chess too soon. Partly, I suppose, as far as the UKCC goes, because they make money out of it. My view is that you should pass a test of chess competence (this would be the first level of CoM) before you can take part in a competition outside your school or club.

Yes, I agree again that you shouldn't start to teach children from the start position. But, the way school chess clubs are run, it's very difficult to do anything else. This, basically, is why they don't work, and should, at least in their current format, be abolished. They would be replaced by a one-year course somewhere on the lines of what you suggest, or the Dutch Steps course, or the chessKIDS mark 3 course, followed by a test (CoM Bronze level or whatever). Children who pass this test would then be able to join a club where they play competitively, matches against other schools, heats of the UKCC and so on. You'd get fewer children starting chess, but, as Cor van Wijgerden pointed out to me, this would in fact be a good thing.

I think there are quite a lot of books that teach the procedure for KQ v K, but not always aimed at children. There's a lot on chessKIDS both interactively and in book form. I start by teaching the basic mate and stalemate positions so that they can commit them to memory and then teach the procedure by means of a simple algorithm, so they are learning, in general, how to follow a plan, as well as how to mate with KQ.

[Richard James]

Hi Richard,

Do you think it's impossible to teach the step by step method in school chess clubs as they are now? I understand and have experienced the fact that most of the kids want to play proper games, but if you get the motivational tools right, whether it be medals, prizes, ratings or a ladder system then I think it can work. I have certainly embraced the method and the kids are happy to be working through the booklets and small games at different speeds with differing degrees of success.

Hi Adam

I'm very inerested to hear your views and experiences with the Steps method. My feeling about it is that the material itself is very impressive but the presentation is rather old-fashioned. Also, I'm not sure how it would be accepted by other schools, given that it is 'pure chess', as these days most parents and schools seem to like chess because of its perceived extrinsic benefits rather than because they want their children to be good chess players.

I am currently working on chessKIDS mark 3 which will incorporate some ideas from the Steps method and elsewhere. There will be plenty of mini-games designed to enable young children to gain fluency in moving the pieces as well as to develop the appropriate cognitive skills. These can be played either within the club/lesson or online against a computer. I am writing a book for young children to accompany this which is scheduled for publication in Autumn 2010. At present I'm working on the book rather than the website. I'll return to website development while the book is in production, in Spring and Summer next year. I'm hoping to trial some of the material at the school where I'm currently working next term. Meanwhile, you can see the work in progress on chessKIDS mark 3 at http://www.chesskids.com/newcourse/menu.htm.

[Neill Cooper]

Hi Neill

I was hoping you'd post on here. ...

I have a few questions for you:

Richard -as with the early postings here it will take me a few days to reply. I'm busy as a maths teacher (end of term reports, A level mock exams, maths matches and British Maths Olympiad) at present.

[Richard James]

Hi Neill

I was hoping you'd post on here. ...

I have a few questions for you:

Richard -as with the early postings here it will take me a few days to reply. I'm busy as a maths teacher (end of term reports, A level mock exams, maths matches and British Maths Olympiad) at present.

No problem. I understand!

[Michele Clack]

I was interested to read the comments on D of Ed award people in local chess clubs. A few years ago we had a young man come to us for his D of Ed. He really enjoyed it and stayed with us until he went to university. He has now finished UNi and is currently looking for a permanent job ( I thought we were supposed to be short of physics graduates) and has started coming to the club again because he enjoys it.

He told us he was very diasappointed when he went to uni and found that there was no chess club. He tried to set one up but couldn't get enough interest. Depending on what job he eventually gets the chances are he will become a regular chess player somewhere in the country if not for us. Even if the success rate is only 1 or 2 people out of 100 it is still new people coming into chess. It does show however that we need more chess in Uni's.


I run a little chess club at my local first school with children aged 6-9. When I started the logical thing seemed to be to teach the pawns first. At least then they can have a pawn game almost immediately. I then add the king and then other pieces one at a time. I have since got hold of a useful little booklet with mini games from the UKCC people.

It worked best with my first group when hardly anyone knew the moves. Some children aren't too keen to take this approach when they see others playing with all the pieces. We had one boy like this this autumn. He surprised me the other day. I got him to go through every piece and pawn move with me and I was amazed to find that he understood every move perfectly. Perhaps we were going too slowly for him. The big problem for me is that although it is only a small club we don't get that many sessions in a year. It does introduce them to chess and they seem to enjoy it. The big problem is that most of them move onto middle schools without a club. Until there is a structured approach to providing the chance to play chess right through school very few people are going to get enough experience to really play. The only strong juniors around here usually have parents who are good players.

[Alex Holowczak]

He told us he was very diasappointed when he went to uni and found that there was no chess club. He tried to set one up but couldn't get enough interest. Depending on what job he eventually gets the chances are he will become a regular chess player somewhere in the country if not for us. Even if the success rate is only 1 or 2 people out of 100 it is still new people coming into chess. It does show however that we need more chess in Uni's.

Which University did he go to?

I've been looking into this myself, and I've noticed that quite often, either:
a) A normal chess club will have its meetings in the University itself
b) Players from local Universities are encouraged to join specific local clubs, e.g. Loughborough University are encouraged to go to Loughborough Chess Club.
c) There are existing societies which have lapsed, such that they no longer run

All in all, I've found about 25 societies in the UK out of more than 100 Universities, more if you split up London, Cambridge and Oxford into its constituent elements.

[Roger de Coverly]

He told us he was very diasappointed when he went to uni and found that there was no chess club. He tried to set one up but couldn't get enough interest. Depending on what job he eventually gets the chances are he will become a regular chess player somewhere in the country if not for us. Even if the success rate is only 1 or 2 people out of 100 it is still new people coming into chess. It does show however that we need more chess in Uni's.

What happened to the British Universities Chess Association? A lack of Google presence would seem to indicate that it's now defunct. This used to organise national inter-university events.

[John Saunders]

Now that Roger has opened up a new thread on the British Universities Chess Association elsewhere, I have posted a reply to this question on the new thread.

[Peter Rhodes]

b) Players from local Universities are encouraged to join specific local clubs, e.g. Loughborough University are encouraged to go to Loughborough Chess Club.

I was the secretary of the club at Loughborough University in the early 1990's. I took over from Alex Richardson.

During my time I put in alot of effort regularising the structure of the club itself, so that my successors would not have to re-invent the wheel each year - so to speak.

You can imagine how gutted I was when a few years after I left, I made some simple enquiries just to discover that the club had folded. It is good that the town club have made a home for the students. I wonder if they are taking advantage of the financial support they could recieve if they constituted a university club as part of the town club. I mentioned this in one of my earlier posts in this thread.

I assume the university club would have folded due to a leadership-vacuum. It is demoralising and sad for chess that one or two bad years can have such a disasterous consequence for a chess community.

It is double-sad that this could all be avoided with a little helping hand from the higher-powers of chess. I have already posed the question about whether there are officers within the ECF acting beyond their pay-grade and capability.

Sorry for being negative, but sometimes I look around and see problems that could be solved so easily, and I wonder why we have "4th division footballers" playing on the team.