Wow, you all make me enbarrased to admit this. I swear I am not an idiot... but my son was beating me regularly at age five, after he'd been playing for about a year. He's no savant, but he plays well and has far more ability to see ahead than I do.
He has not played a lot, other than a week of chess camp through USA Chess at age eight. He'd broken his arm and had to miss cub scout day camp that summer, so did the chess camp instead. It was a good experience, but all of the kids were pretty introverted and they didn't really make friends.
A homeschool mom in this area just started a chess club and ds reported that he won all three games he played at the first meeting. I'm hoping that he'll find future meeting a bit more competitive.
