Chess Coaching

[Andrew_Moore]

Hello All,

I have been a chess coach for 11 years now, teaching at many schools in the Midlands on a part time basis, and would like to add more schools to my portfolio. Hence, should you know of any primary and/ or secondary schools or colleges that would like to hire a chess coach on lunchtimes and/ or after school, then please pass on this entry with my contact details - see below.

Furthermore, I am also doing private tuition for juniors on a 1-2-1 basis (CRB Enhanced) within the west midlands for only £20 per hour or £35 for 2 hours, (monday to friday and selected Saturday afternoons from 1pm in Worcester or from 2pm in the West Midlands) AND adult coaching up to graded players of around 100, privately at the above prices or online tuition through e-mail @ 1 calendar month - £50 (1 lesson per week), 2 months hints and tips £35 per month or 1 Tournament concentrated (i.e. e-mail contact between games analysising positions, some telephone contact, etc.) for £100 per tournament.

For even more details on the above e-mail [email protected] or telephone 07824 394683 between 3pm and 7pm weeknights only.

Regards and Thanks

Andrew Moore BA AREC
ECF Accredited Chess Coach

[Ben Purton]

People put their BA after their name, that's new .

Mines like a part time tea-mat in my house.

Id rather get a FM title than a Masters that's a bit depressing

Ben

[Deborah Swann]

This query is not directly connected to the initial post within this topic, but does come under this heading.

I am a secondary school teacher and about 16 months ago I started up our school chess club. I have been doing what I can both to develop the skills of the pupils and also my own skills as a coach, so we study chess as well as play games.

During the coaching session we: do quizzes and drills; learn about and practise tactics; go through the games of the grandmasters etc. Pupils also play email chess at home or against the computer, and do the online lessons on chesskids, which I think are great.

Earlier this year I contacted the ECF to ask for advice and guidance on how to improve as a coach, with the aim of eventually becoming an accredited coach. It was suggested that I purchase the Certificate of Chess Merit and work through that, which I have done. This obviously shows me what juniors need to know, but I was pretty much covering these things anyway.

So, the question is "Is there more I can do?" I have been using chessgames.com to go through the games of grandmasters and have recently downloaded and started to get to grips with Chessbase Light 2009. The next step for me is to start to upload pupils' scored games, and it is here that I have a problem. Someone kindly advised me to use an online programme called Caissa PDN editor but I have so far failed to save the games I have uploaded and lost them at the final stage. Someone else suggested that Fritz was a must for any chess coach. There seem to be a lot of versions available and i'm not sure which one to purchase to meet the needs of the club. I'd like to upload and convert pupil games to pgn files to go through with individuals or the group. Analysis would be great too.

As you can see I have lots of questions. They mainly fall under two headings: How to improve as a coach? and Which software to download or purchase to enhance my coaching and best help my pupils?. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Deborah

[Roger de Coverly]

have recently downloaded and started to get to grips with Chessbase Light 2009. The next step for me is to start to upload pupils' scored games,

Even in its "light" form doesn't Chessbase still have a facility to input and save games. It is after all what ChessBase 1.0 did back in the days of Dos and 8086 computers.

edit - strange but true . The free version doesn't allow you to use it as an electronic scorebook. You have to upgrade to Premium for 50 Euros for that. Fritz 11 is 50 Euros as well.

You might want to look at ChessDb http://chessdb.sourceforge.net/

edit 2

Also you could try Chess Assistant 7. http://chessok.com/download/pc/Chess_As ... _Light.zip

The commercial version is now version 10, the free version is from 2004 but does allow you to both create and view databases.

[Neill Cooper]

Deborah

It is great to hear of you running a secondary school chess club. I think that the best people to run school chess clubs are teachers, as they have the respect of the pupils.
Where are you based? - would you be interested in playing chess matches (friendly or competitive) with other local secondary schools? I find that my pupils mainly like playing games - both internally (e.g. UK Chess Challenge, chess ladder) and externally (matches, Megafinals, congresses, inter-club matches). Whilst I am an ECF Coach I mainly limit my coaching to one piece of advice after each inter-school game lost (on Friday it included 'You had a nice attacked but I noticed you did not get all your pieces out', 'you were over ambitious', 'you rushed because your opponent was short of time') and looking at positions, principally Shredder Daily problems at http://www.shredderchess.com/weekly-chess-problems.html.

[Richard James]

Hi (again) Deborah

What I do is this:

Create a new database in ChessBase (file-new-database), then enter my pupils' games into the new database. Then close the database (otherwise Fritz won't be able to save the annotated games), open Fritz, select my new database, go into analysis mode and select the games I want to analyse. Then Fritz will analyse the games and save them for you. You can then print them out, go through them with your pupils, and give them a copy of the printout.

If this helps and you need any more specific instructions please let me know.

Richard

[Deborah Swann]

Thanks to all who have replied so far.

Richard. I'll try out your suggestion with Chessbase (it is for the light version isn't it?).

I'll also have a look at ChessDb. Thanks Roger.

Neil, I am in York. So far we have only played internal tournaments plus the uk land challenge and the Yorkshire Grand Prix. I hope to play other schools at some stage depending on time and pupil interest.

Although I still need to have a good look at the suggestions I have received so far, I could still do with a bit more advice as there are a lot of options out there. I mainly want to upload and save my pupils games as pgn files, analysis would then be a bonus. I am wondering which of all of these packages would be best for my chess club. I would have some (limited) funding: ChessBase Premium 2009?; Fritz (which one?); would a free download be sufficient? It's all a bit overpowering when you start researching something like this and just wondering what others who run clubs use for uploading games and analysis.

Deborah

[Michele Clack]

Hi Deborah

It sounds like you are doing a great job. Most of the good players I know use chessbase. If you had the money I would think the premium edition would be best for you as it has lots of annotated master games and would definitely do all the things you require. If players had access say at lunch times etc they could use it to do their own research.

Do you belong to a senior chess club yourself? Very difficult for a busy teacher I know but if not and you could fit it in there would probably be people there who would be only too happy to advise and guide you. If there weren't then give that club a miss and try another club.

Another possibility might be to contact Andrew Moore who started this thread. He has successfully run the Worcestershire Junior Chess Academy on a Saturday morning for several years. His contact details can be found on the Academy's website: http://www.wjca.org.uk

[Richard James]

Deborah

I'm using the full ChessBase but you must be able to do the same thing in ChessBase Light. I've been doing this for years with various versions of ChessBase and Fritz - several thousand games in total. For many years I posted annotated scores of all games played in the higher group of Richmond Junior Chess Club onto the members page of the club website so that they could all go through their games. Most of them didn't bother of course but one or two did.

Richard

[Roger de Coverly]

I'm using the full ChessBase but you must be able to do the same thing in ChessBase Light.

Not so with the free version of Light 9. They've deactivated Create New Database/ Create New Game. It's a bit as if you downloaded a demo version of Excel and then found you couldn't set up a new spreadsheet. Light 9 in its free form is really just a portal to their on-line database.

There's been mention of Fritz. Fritz as sold is two programs really, Fritz the interface and Fritz the engine. If you have ChessBase (with working features) then most people prefer to use ChessBase for game input and run Fritz the engine from within ChessBase for analysis. I think Fritz the interface also allows game input and game saves - you probably have to specify human v human. You can also use Fritz the interface with other playing engines, Rybka, Hiarcs, Crafty etc.

Fritz is also available for PDAs (Pocket Fritz) and for multi-processor machines (Deep Fritz). Apart from version number changes I think that's it.

[Deborah Swann]

Thanks Roger.

I have decided to go for Fritz. There are lots of versions available and I've been advised to buy 9 or 10.
Versions 11 and 12 also exist, however. Would it be best to go for the older versions (9 or 10) because they are simpler to use, or would it be better to go for the very latest, all singing all dancing (12)? Sometimes the latest version is not an improvement on the former one.

Thanks

Deborah

[David Shepherd]

Deborah

I think they improve slightly - I have fritz 11 which is in my opinion slightly better than the earlier version I had. Amazon seem to have fritz 12 for just over £16 and I think for that price I would go for that version - any of the versions 9 -12 will be ok, but I would go for version 12.

David

[Deborah Swann]

Thanks, David.

Anyone know the difference between Fritz 12 (http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.a ... =%20&coin=) and Fritz Chess 12
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keyw ... 1x4t2rpl_e)

- different box and different price.

Deborah

[John Anderson]

Deborah - I think you will find that Fritz Chess 12 by Excaliber is a completely different program to Fritz 12 from Chessbase, the normal retail price being around £40. Caveat emptor!

[David Shepherd]

Deborah

I dont think they are completely different. I have fritz 8 by excalibur which says it is produced under licence from chessbase and also have fritz 11 from chessbase. Also see http://www.excalibur-publishing.com/fritz12.htm. However I guess there are differences but I do not have the knowledge to answer what they are (I had not realised until now that the excalibur one was not made directly by chessbase ). Help anyone else?

Best wishes

David
PS I notice there is a fritz 10 by chessbas on amazon for just under £8. At that price I also think that is a good bet