English Chess Forum

So on Tuesday we got another new junior to our club, (for those following my posting history on the junior forum, we have recently become more junior friendly, although thats another matter.)

The junior on Tuesday was 10 years old, and had being playing chess (at home) for two years with his dad. Unfortuately his well meaning dad has taught him a lot of bad chess habits.

Part of the reason is because he has played games almost exclusively.

Anyway what we are looking to do is to get him into NOT playing games at the club, but to focus on some coaching (which would certainly start with some technical endgames.)

My question is how do you correct a child's bad chess habits WITHOUT wanting them to make them feel unwelcome.

David Blower wrote: My question is how do you correct a child's bad chess habits WITHOUT wanting them to make them feel unwelcome.

Has the child/parent said what they hope to get out of coming to the club?

Also, what do you mean by 'bad habits'?

Mini games are an excellent way forward.
Deconstruct positions and focus on the essentials.
Can you provide examples of the bad habits?

Such as moving the same piece continously in the opening leading to a lack of development.

In the Queen + King v King technical endgame checkmate, they kept moving the queen to check the lone king, which led to nothing as obviously the king then just movesout of check etc.

Moving the pawns on the a and h files to start the game rather than the d and e pawns etc.

I'd recommend getting him to work through the CSC Workbook 1 and see how he performs.
I use this for all beginners and it has been of great service to my students both in classes and one-to-one students.

It sounds like nothing purposeful has been learnt from the parent and you will have to undo the bad stuff.
Most children will go through a phase of developing rooks via r3 until educated about the cons of doing so.
Most children will try "Rambo" chess until examples are shown which show it to be bad.

If only the parent had read Richard James excellent book!

Rooks should quite clearly not be developed via r3. Instead, they should be developed via r2.

[Event "British Chess Championships"] [Site "Aberystwyth WLS"] [Date "2014.07.22"] [EventDate "2014.07.19"] [Round "4.8"] [Result "1-0"] [White "Jack Rudd"] [Black "Keith Arkell"] [ECO "E00"] [WhiteElo "2278"] [BlackElo "2433"] [PlyCount "61"] 1. d4 e6 2. c4 Bb4+ 3. Nc3 c5 4. a3 Bxc3+ 5. bxc3 Ne7 6. e3 d6 7. Bd3 Nbc6 8. f4 f5 9. Nf3 O-O 10. h3 b6 11. g4 Na5 12. Rg1 Qe8 13. Ra2 Ba6 14. Rag2 g6 15. Ng5 Bxc4 16. Bxc4 Nxc4 17. Qe2 b5 18. h4 Rf6 19. h5 cxd4 20. hxg6 Rxg6 21. gxf5 exf5 22. Qh5 Rg7 23. Qh1 Qc6 24. Ne6 Rxg2 25. Rxg2+ Kf7 26. Nxd4 Qd5 27. Qxh7+ Ke8 28. Rg7 Qe4 29. Nxf5 Qxf5 30. Rxe7+ Kd8 31. Qxf5 1-0

David Blower wrote:Such as moving the same piece continously in the opening leading to a lack of development.

In the Queen + King v King technical endgame checkmate, they kept moving the queen to check the lone king, which led to nothing as obviously the king then just movesout of check etc.

Moving the pawns on the a and h files to start the game rather than the d and e pawns etc.

Ah ok. I suspected that it might be something like that but I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t matters of etiquette.


Well it comes back to my other question: have the child/parent said what they’re hoping to get out of coming to a club? Not that what the child wants and what the parents want for their children always coincidence in my experience, but it’s a good starting point.

If what’s wanted is coaching then all well and good. The provision is the welcome.

Have you considered that the kid might not want his bad habits removed though? A lot of children just want to play and don’t care to 'learn'. And why should they have to if they don’t want to? In the case, perhaps a quiet word with the parent about what’s realistic. I would imagine they wouldn’t last too long in most clubs getting fed-up with being smashed over and over.

Of course it may be possible to do a bit of both. I wouldn’t necessarily write-off letting the kid play a bit if s/he wants. Unless they’ve already said that they want to be coached, but then I assume you wouldn’t be asking the question in the first place.

IM Jack Rudd wrote:Rooks should quite clearly not be developed via r3. Instead, they should be developed via r2.

Especially if you've cleared your 2nd rank by move 11. Is that what Samisch had in mind with 4.a3?

For the opening one way I tried for beginners was to try to get them to move just the white pieces without black moving to see what they came up with. As long as they move them to sensible places it doesn't really matter where they put the pieces and in the exact order they move as long as its reasonably sensible development. I think you will find at some point the player you have gets stuck - I believe it helps as a way of providing them with at least a vague idea of what they are aiming for without the distraction of the other players moves. So explain idea the of moving a pawn or two to allow the bishops out - then moving knights/bishops - queen at some point, castling for king safety rooks to centre open file etc. Your player has just has never been shown the order to develop in and no picture in their mind of what they are aiming for.

For the king checking explain the ideas behind the box mate and the lawnmower mate and the idea of creating a barrier.

Yes he is there to improve at chess and for us to improve him via coaching.

Jonathan Bryant wrote:

David Blower wrote:
I wouldn’t necessarily write-off letting the kid play a bit if s/he wants. Unless they’ve already said that they want to be coached, but then I assume you wouldn’t be asking the question in the first place.

I can understand why you would be confused with me asking the question in the first place.

I think his dads idea of us coaching him is for him to play games, and then for us to correct his bad moves etc. Which in my view is not the best way of coaching.

My (and the clubs) general idea of coaching is to explain certain technical things such as the King + Queen v King endgame checkmate (we use the knights cheching distance technique.)

OK, I think I’m grasping the problem now.

Again I would suggest a word with the father explaining what you’re doing and why. I tend to use analogies like, "It’s a bit like learning the scales when you’re starting out on piano" or "you have to learn your ABCs before you can write a story" or some such. Anything that I think might make sense to the person concerned.

David Shepherd wrote:For the opening one way I tried for beginners was to try to get them to move just the white pieces without black moving to see what they came up with. As long as they move them to sensible places it doesn't really matter where they put the pieces and in the exact order they move as long as its reasonably sensible development. I think you will find at some point the player you have gets stuck - I believe it helps as a way of providing them with at least a vague idea of what they are aiming for without the distraction of the other players moves. So explain idea the of moving a pawn or two to allow the bishops out - then moving knights/bishops - queen at some point, castling for king safety rooks to centre open file etc. Your player has just has never been shown the order to develop in and no picture in their mind of what they are aiming for.

For the king checking explain the ideas behind the box mate and the lawnmower mate and the idea of creating a barrier.

Perhaps you(any reader here) could have s/he set up positions which they think are most effective against the castled(both sides) and uncastled positions
They should try to see the defense in their mind first and only consult a board if necessary imo.

David Blower wrote:My question is how do you correct a child's bad chess habits WITHOUT wanting them to make them feel unwelcome.

The title of the post gives the misleading impression, to me at least, that it was to do with the child's behaviour rather than chess playing experience!

I wouldn't be so critical of the youngster's chess performance after only one visit. I doubt that he stayed for the full session which I presume would normally finish around 10:30/11:00pm, well passed bed time.

The real question to me seems to be how can his interest in playing chess be developed and supported in the potentially hostile environment of an adult chess club?

In our club we have sufficient Juniors and sufficient supervising adults with DBS certificates to run a Junior Club for one hour before the adults arrive. The more capable younsters then stay on for another hour to play in a Ladder competition (15 minute rapidplay).

Teaching Primary School children requires lots of patience and a lot of repetition. Please, don't force too much on them and don't expect them to remember everything in one go. The first step is really to encourage their enthusiasm to play. Coaching needs to be appropriate and not too forceful. Remember, chess is primarily a game played for pleasure.

Michael Flatt wrote:

David Blower wrote:My question is how do you correct a child's bad chess habits WITHOUT wanting them to make them feel unwelcome.

The real question to me seems to be how can his interest in playing chess be developed and supported in the potentially hostile environment of an adult chess club?


Coaching needs to be appropriate and not too forceful. Remember, chess is primarily a game played for pleasure.

Believe it or not, I believe our club has taken steps forward with regards to children feeling at home in an adult chess club. See this post for one: http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7195

That child managed to get his school to start a school chess club, and now 20 children go to his school chess club (we don't run it, the school themselves run it.)

Because of the one child joining in February, we have had good word of mouth, as him and his mum have spread the good word of our chess club as a good one in the area.

This is very good progress from what used to happen at our club, and I am quite pleased.

Don't get me wrong there is a bit of a way to go.

But now we have another junior member starting at our club (this one being discussed in the forum.) His needs are a bit different, but nevertheless the club are a lot better prepared for this sort of situation than we would have been 12 months ago.

One of the main things we did was to have a separate contact for juniors. This has meant the needs of children have been dealt with more effiectively.

I know it will not be an overnight success, in fact that is why I created this thread. On Tuesday coming up, we will aim to do the King + Queen v King checkmate, using the knights checking distance technique, and if he learns it, he would have learnt something new. We don't expect our juniors to be grandmasters, but if they enjoy the game with a willingness to learn, that alone is enough.

And yes we always explain WHY we are doing something, as well as explaining HOW to do it.

I also think that improvment and enjoyment of the game can go hand in hand with each other, and it is not just a case of one or the other.

All of this is different to what happened as recently as about a year ago, where new juniors would turn up, and be pitted into serious friendly matches against the clubs A team players. This led to a new approach from our club which will be a long term plan, but hopefully it is now beginning to pay off.