Chess for Kids?

cyberbian asks: "My six year old daughter has recently expressed an interest in chess. We have been playing a few games, but I fear that I'm not the best teacher for such a venerable game. Is there any software that the Slashdot community would recommend for learning the mechanics and structures of good chess?"

chessmaster

[flogic42]

The chessmaster [amazon.com] series has good tutorials at any level.

Good introductory game -- Smess

[BobTheWonderMonkey]

As a child I learned a game called Smess (The Ninny's Chess) first. Check out ChessVariants [chessvariants.com] for information. It's a great introductory game that gets you started thinking along chess lines. The transition from Smess to Chess is relatively simple to make, even for a child.

Give it a try!

Re:People are better teachers

[BoredAtWorkWhatElse]

The parent has a point, however if YOU want to learn how to play chess so you can teach your daughter better you can try ChessMaster [ubi.com]. Great software for both the beginners and the experts, many tutorials, quiz, challenges, games with audio commentary (by Chess Master Josh Waitzkin [wikipedia.org]).

Maybe not the best software for a child but definitely a good one for a grown up. And like the parent said, for now you're still the best teacher there is for your daughter =)

Re:chessmaster

[Jazzer_Techie]

When I was in elementary school, our chess club used Chessmates [amazon.com] to help younger players learn. It's a Win 9x piece of software, but it is great. It has 10 levels of play, easy being really easy and hard actually being pretty tough. More importantly, it has great tutorials illustrating various tactics. There are animated characters who guide you through the various skills, complete with puzzles, and when you master something it generates a nice printable certificate. (Example: to illustrate a fork, a handsome prince has to choose between saving a damsel in distress and a treasure chest from a dragon. May sound a bit silly, but it's really effective. And throughout the program Wigby the Wizard can give hints and help.) It's a great program for younger kids.

join a chess club?

[wardk]

they are all over. 5 year old chess is huge. most schools have one, or a neighbor school will adopt kids from other schools.

most chess software quite honestly sucks, especially getting it setup to challenge a 5 year old without discouraging them by getting slaughtered over and over.

Learn as you teach her

[JamesTKirk]

I'm an intermediate chess player, and I'm currently teaching my 9 year old son to play.

You should teach your daughter yourself, rather than look for chess software. She'll be able to ask you questions as you go, and it'll be quality time that you can share with her.

I don't know what your level of chess knowlege is, but you could read some books to pick up the basics of tactics and strategy so that you're prepared to teach her. If you begin by teaching her the mechanics (how the pieces move and capture), by the time she's ready to learn basic tactics (pins, forks) and strategy (control the center), you should know enough about these topics that you'll be able to teach her.

I would recommend two classic books for any beginner to read to pick up the basics:

Chess Fundamentals http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1857440730 [amazon.com]
Lasker's Manual of Chess http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0486206408 [amazon.com]

These are both considered essential reading for anyone interested in grasping the basic concepts of chess. If read these these (or any other) books on chess strategy, you'll be prepared to teach your daughter for at least a couple of years, and you'll improve your chess as well. If you get to the point where you are unable (or unwilling) to continue studying, and your daughter starts beating you regularly, then she will probably be ready to start reading on her own, or you might want to consider a chess coach at that point.

My daughter taught herself chess this past summer

[caouette]

This past summer, my daughter (then 6) decided she wanted to teach herself chess. So we found this site http://www.chesskids.com/kidzone/index.shtml [chesskids.com]. Within a couple of weeks, she had learned the basic moves, and rules.

Now, she's in the Chess Club at her school, and while she is definitely not the best player out there, she really enjoys the game.

Re:Fritz and Chesster

[Fhqwhgadss]

I have found software from Chessbase (Fritz, etc) to be pretty demeaning to women. In response to moving the queen for the first time in Fritz 7, for example, the opponent replied (audibly): "A woman's place is in the kitchen." I have read reviews (can't find them now, though) that Fritz and Chesster have similar comments, especially in the multimedia sequences and that these cannot be skipped. So unless you want your daughter being repeatedly told how inferior they are, or your son exposed to such sexist views, I would stay away from F & C. If you're just looking for a means to keep your kid quiet for long periods of time without bothering you, I've heard that F & C is great.

As far as the instruction goes, you would serve your kids far better by teaching them yourself, over the board. It's a lot more fun for you too. As long as you can teach the very basics of piece movement, you should be good enough. If you feel the need to suppliment with software after teaching the basics, there is great tactics software for all skill levels; Chess Tactics for Beginners and CT-Art from ChessAssistant come to mind. Teaching strategy with software to a young child, I expect would be a lost cause, though I haven't tried that myself. You're better off learning that yourself or using a professional chess instructor. Jeremy Silman has some good books if you're up to the task of learning yourself. Otherwise call (or visit!) your local chess club and ask for referrals for a good instructor. They may have some sotware to recommend, but will add expert instruction and recommend how to use the software effectively.

Re:Kids' chess set

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an instructional chess set that had fairly simple plastic pieces with all the moves for each piece embossed on them.

The common Staunton Chess pieces already reflect the moves of the pieces (to a certain extent). It might help beginners to point out the shapes reflect the moves with most sets:
The Bishop moves diagonally and the top of the piece is slanted.
The Rook moves in straight lines and the top is flat (flat enough to turn upside down and it still stands up).
The Knight has a bent horses head and moves in an L-shape pattern
The Queen can move in all directions and her crown has a circle of points reflecting the multiple directions.
The King and the Pawn don't match up as well
The King usually has a cross on top and he moves one space in all directions. This is something like a cross.
The Pawn usually has a single globe on top. This might be like a single space move.

Well it works pretty well for the knight, rook, and bishop.

It does not work for en passant, casteling or the initial pawn move of one or two spaces.

Chessmaster requires admin privileges to run!

[rmcd]

Chessmaster is a terrific piece of software, with one very important caveat. It absolutely has to be installed and run with administrative privileges. If you don't want your kids running with administrative privileges, forget Chessmaster. (There is supposed to be a workaround involving symbolic links from the kid's home directory to the administrator's, but I never got it to work.) Talk about brain-damaged software design!

I own Chessmaster 9000. I was told by Ubi tech support that the same issue exists with Chessmaster 10.

Re:Teach her yourself

[JohnFluxx]

The "play chess with her, not against her" strangely doesn't have any suitable word for that style of gaming, however in go it's "shidougo" which translates to basically teaching go.

A random google search found: http://senseis.xmp.net/?TeachingGame [xmp.net]

Re:Kids' chess set

[EngrBohn]

My son took up chess in November. To help him remember the moves I drew the possible moves for each piece on a sheet from engineering pad. We saw a set like that in a nearby store shortly before he got interested but couldn't find it again before he grew out of the need for that a couple of weeks later. We since picked up a couple of "Chess Teacher" sets for $5 each on after-Christmas discount and donated them to his school. The sets we found had hollow plastic pieces that squeeze-fit into the bases. If the child doesn't need the help, the bases can be removed.

Majestic Chess

[eugaet]

I'd recommend Majestic Chess [gamespot.com], if you can still find a copy. It includes a story-driven 'chess adventure' that teaches the basics of chess by working through a series of challenges. My 5yo likes playing it with me quite a bit.

So long as you're involved in her learning experience, I don't think it matters too much whether your kid learns chess sitting across from you at a real chess board or in a chair next to you playing through the software.

Re:Easy Question...

[rsd]

Yep. I know a lot people started playing and learning chess with Battle Chess.
They just wanted to see the peaces ripping each other appart.

Even without knowing how to play they learned by try.

Later it came Battle Chess 3000 and then Star Wars Battle Chess or something like this.

Today there is Chessmaster 10 which has a kid module that teachs a kid how to play with full 3D animations.

And there is Majestic Chess [sierra.com]. That was created by the original author of Chessmaster and has a really interesting adventure game to teach how to play chess. Really interesting even for advanced players. here is a Review [netjak.com].

Re:Fritz and Chesster

[Fhqwhgadss]

Here's a link to one review [amazon.com] of Fritz and Chesster that has a vague mention of the jokes. Another review [aol.com] specifically mentions fat jokes.

I haven't personally used F & C, but I have heard the offensive banter of Fritz 7 first-hand. It's really in poor taste. As far as why no-one cares, that's easy. The world of chess is dominated by men, almost to the point of exclusion. Girls are not encouraged to play serious chess. At my local chess club I've seen precisely one female player out of dozens of players I've seen there. The only female player to ever get any traction in the "men's" league is Judit Polgar. All of the rest play in the league that is specifically for women. Hell I've even seen insulting emails posted online by GMs lambasting a strong player for trying to attain a GM title part of which said that the WIM (Women's International Master) title was not even a possibility, let alone a "real" title. Chessbase's "news" articles are especially awful. More often than not, you'll see exactly 0 articles discussing women in chess on the front page. If there are any, it's more likely to be a tounament that includes both men's and women's divisions, or glamour shots of Alexandra Kosteniuk [chessbase.com], than a serious piece.

Perhaps I was quick to judge F & C as having sexist content, but given Chessbase's modus operandi, I'm not going to find out by sitting my daughters in front of it.

Re: People are better teachers

[cyberbianMom]

As the mother of said "six-year-old daughter" who truly has initiated an interest in chess (all on her own), I feel the need to weigh in on this discussion. First, we are aware that people are better teachers. I am a qualified teacher and we know the importance of socially mediated interactions. It is reassuring to know that if a cyborg-parent [slashdot.org] lacking in the ability to teach through modeling and zone of proximal development [sdsu.edu], that Slashdot readers would be ready to stay them on the humane track. However, I did not think Slashdot was the forum for advice on how to interact with your children. When seeking out the best chess software for kids, it must be said, I would definitely consider Slashdot the place to go for solid software advice. Being the incredibly hip, socially progressive crowd, I would also expect leading edge advice that encompassess accessibility, platform independence, and overall usability. Thanks to all of you who did provide that.

GNU Chess

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

GNU Chess [gnu.org] is a great program, especially if you're like me and keep losing all your pieces.

I had this one back in the dawn of time, when we had OS2 on a dual boot with 3.11, before I even knew what dual boot was. Hours of fun. On the higher difficulty settings the computer simply cannot be defeated!

At least, I think it was GNU Chess. It looked exactly like it.

Re:Except..

[Abcd1234]

Go is cool, except the baroqueness comes out in (1) the scoring (2) all the rule subvariants about time, scoring, ko/superko, etc.

I humbly disagree. :) No child needs to know the intricacies of ever Go ruleset. Just pick one scoring system (Japanese is probably simplest), regular ko (superko is interesting, but certainly not worth introducing early on), and don't even both teaching byoyomi. At this point, Go has a mere handful of rules, and no wonky special cases (aside from Ko), as opposed to Chess with it's 6 pieces, all with different properties, not to mention a variety of more obscure rules.

It's probably easier for a kid to estimate winning/losing in a game of chess.

This is certainly true, and is difficult for even experienced amateur players. OTOH, children are little sponges and can catch on to such things remarkably quickly. Moreover, early on, it's rarely necessary to be able to accurately count score, since games aren't typically that close.

Frankly, I think both games have something to offer, and which to play is really more a matter of taste.

In the end, I think the biggest problem with teaching Go is finding cheap, quality equipment to play with. While you can makeshift a Go board pretty easily, getting at least a cheap wood board + plastic stones can be surprisingly difficult.