Originally Posted by ultramarina
aquinas, my DS (easily) learned to play chess at 3, so...you could at least try! There's that No-Stress Chess variant, too. My DS would not have had the communication abilities at 2, but obviously, YMMV!

(Looking back, I'm now like, wait, he was 3? That's weird. It didn't seem weird at the time. I don't know. We didn't even teach him. DD did.)

My oldest son learned how to play before his fourth birthday.

Here is an anecdote about one of the most talented and famous chess players in history, Capablanca:

http://www.supreme-chess.com/famous-chess-players/jose-capablanca.html
Quote
Referred to by many chess historians as the Mozart of chess, Capablanca was a chess prodigy whose brilliance was noted at an early age. According to Capablanca, he learned the rules of the game at the age of four by watching his father play. He said he noticed his father make an illegal move with his knight, accused him of cheating, and then demonstrated what he had done. It may be unlikely that he learned all the subtleties of en passant pawn capture, castling rules, and underpromotion by observation alone, since some of the positions which demonstrate the rules are uncommon. Capablanca was taken to the Havana Chess Club when he was five, where the leading players found it impossible to beat the young boy when giving him the handicap of a queen.