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I'd like to start a thread where we can collect all the chess resources people know about in one place. I am just starting to learn about what is out there in this area. Here is what I know about. PLease add!

Physical Games

Solitaire Chess

This is not "real chess" and has some aspects that are sort of strange, but if your child is constantly begging to play chess and sometimes lacks an opponent, it can be nice. We find that the rating of the problems is a bit inconsistent. Should be fine for bright kids ages 5 and up, even without much chess experience.
http://www.amazon.com/Think-Fun-340...83745735&sr=8-1&keywords=solitaire+chess


No Stress Chess

We have not tried this but many people seem to like it as a basic intro to the game.
http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Moves...83745855&sr=8-1&keywords=no+stress+chess

Computer DVDs

Learn to PLay Chess with Fritz and Chesster

http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Play-Ch...and+chesster+learn+to+play+chess+-+vol+1

We have this and my DS5 loves it. It is engaging but NOT dumbed down. You have to finish the challenges to proceed all the way through, and some are hard. He has finished vol 1 and is halfway through Vol 2. Note that it appears only to be available for Vista/7/XP. There are some other versions, I think.

Websites

http://www.chesskid.com/

DS loves this website. However, it is frustratingly limited unless you pay the steep $50 membership fee. Activities will be snatched out from under your nose. I dislike the bait and switch aspect, but the material is good enough that we are considering paying. You can play online for free with other kids here, but I worry about the seemingly unregulated chat. (It may be monitored somehow) One VERY good feature you CAN get for free is the "chess curriculum" in PDF form.

http://www.kidchess.com/

I have not explored this much yet, but it looks to have some good puzzles.

http://mateinone.com/

Mate in One puzzles. DS found some of them easy but then got frustrated by others. Would like to find a site where you can set the difficulty.

http://www.chessmagnetschool.com/

Here you can sign up for a year of chess training for $30. DS did the trial and did not find it extremely engaging. He may be just a little too young, or too used to the bells and whistles of Fritz and Chesster.

www.chess.com

Grown-up version of chesskid. Some good articles available here: http://www.chess.com/blog/webmaster/free-chess-mentor-courses A vast world I have not yet really explored.


Books

Chess Tactics for Kids

This was recommended to us but we don't love it. It's a bit advanced for our purposes and DS has a hard time reading notation at this point.

http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Tactics...1&sr=8-1&keywords=chess+tactics+for+kids

Apps

ChessKid
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=chesskid&hl=en

Has daily free puzzles (limit 3, I think) and ability to play online with a short time limit.

Chess Free

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&hl=en

Nice artificial intelligence engine allows you to play the computer on levels of difficulty from easy to very hard. An advanced beginner child should be able to beat the engine on easy levels. You can also play 2-player chess with a friend in person (nice if you're somewhere w/o a board), but no online chess.

Tactic Trainer
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thecvsi.tactictrainer&hl=en

Short puzzles. Will adjust to your performance. These are hard, and we don't always agree with the solution, but it's a nice little distraction and surely good for one's game.

Chesstempo.com

Untimed tactics practice that presents progressively harder puzzles.

Majestic Chess

CD computer game that offers tactics practice in a fun, game based adventure setting.

My son practices on chess.com since the time control on chesskid.com aren't adequate.

Yes, we don't like the limited time on chesskid.com either! What's with that? But I didn't think he could really handle chess.com yet with random opponents. It also seems like a risky place to set a child loose--no? He does play there with his grandfather.

Gabalyn, what do you use on chesstempo? My son is still only 5 so he is not too advanced yet.

My son is 9 and plays on chess.com almost every day. Usually, no one chats. Many of his opponents may not even speak English. I am always close by. There is a way to turn off chat, I think. But I haven't found it necessary.

Just for fun, check out iPad or iPhone app 3d Magic Chess. Not great for practice, but stunning.

Chess.emrald.net is another tactics server.

On chesstempo.com, he does the tactics training, where he is presented with puzzles, and has to choose the move that wins material. It might be too advanced for a five-year-old. Have you taken a look at zoomChess.com? Same curriculum as chessmagnetschool.com, but presented in a more appealing way. As I recall, it was fairly expensive.

chessclub.com is good for playing games online.

For someone wanting to play games 45 minutes or longer, it is best for ratings under 1500. But for blitz games even higher rated players can find opponents quickly.

The rating question is still pretty mystifying to me, so I don't know where DS falls on this. We struggle with knowing whom he should be playing in online settings. It's discouraging to him to be completely obliterated. Obviously he needs to avoid players over 1000, but other than that I am unclear if we should be looking for 400 and under, 600 and under, or whether these ratings are not really useful in the end. He was given a rating in the 600s after his first tournament, but he only played 4 games.

Ultramarina, Kidchess.com has something called "kid chess evaluator" maybe that can tell you what rating? Also it has "Flash Chess" child can choose the level and paly against the computer. My son was doing that yesterday and enjoyed it...

People have posted chess sites with instructional material and which let you play chess. Children who play baseball may follow a professional team, watching games on TV (and in person on occasion) and reading about their team. There is much less media coverage of chess, but a good site to follow chess news is http://www.chessbase.com/ . A world championship match of twelve games between the current champion, Anand (age 43), and Carlsen (age 22) is starting tomorrow in Chennai, India. I won't watch the games live (some chess fans do) but will play over the games later.

Thanks, Irena. I hadn't seen either of those options at that site!

Bostonian, I think DS would enjoy watching some great players play live.

This was linked to on LifeHacker today:

http://www.gautamnarula.com/how-to-get-good-at-chess-fast/

Much of it is aimed at strong adult players, but may be of interest. I am looking at the Chess Tactics for Beginners CD ROM for DS. I'm not sure why, but he sort of lost interest in Fritz and Chesster in the middle of disc 2.

Bostonian, DS and I really enjoyed playing through the world championship games and watching some of the coverage.

DS was able to complete all the quizzes on the Kid Chess evaluator (he struggled a bit with some of the 4-star ones but still got the certificate). They did not give him a rating, though, AFAIK. Oh, except he did not do the ones about building a house or a spaceship because he didn't know what that was (some strategy the site teaches, I assume).

DS got Chess Tactics for Beginners for Xmas. What I will say about this CD-ROM is that it is not nearly as engaging for children as Fritz and Chesster, which would only make sense as it is not specifically designed for children, despite goofy cover graphics. However, I can tell that it will keep DS busy for a long time, and that it is powerful and versatile, so I'd recommend it for kids who are already interested in chess and looking to up their game. So far DS is not finding it very hard, but I think that's because it starts you off easy and works up. However, it is recommended for kids with ratings under 1400-1500 so keep that in mind.

Bump-I am looking for some recommendations for books for DS5. He can read notation fairly well at this point, but it would probably be more enjoyable for him if the book is not mostly notation. I am not sure what to get because I think adult books are mostly way too advanced, but basic kid-oriented books may be too simple. He is ready to learn some more openings, endgames, and gambits. He is now able to read Chess Tactics for Kids (linked to upthread) with no difficulty, but I think he has pretty much read that one through several times now.

I am also going to recommend the app ChessFree, which we recently downloaded:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.aifactory.chessfree&hl=en

We like this app because when you play the computer, it uses an AI engine that makes the moves more human-like. It's also not that hard to beat on the easy levels (well, for DS! not talking about me here), and has a nice 2-player version.

My son used to love the game "Learn to Play Chess with Fritz and Chesster" by Viva Media. This was back when one "bought" computer games on disks. I just checked and it's still available on Amazon, but you have to buy a different version for Mac or Windows. It is labeled 8 and up.

My son really enjoyed the game partially because it involved playing games that taught chess strategy first, before introducing the complete game.

Yes, that is listed in the first post. My son has really enjoyed the game.

Try "How to Beat Your Dad at Chess".

How to Beat Your Dad At Chess
Any of Susan Polgar's books
Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess

My DS6 recommends these; he started reading them at age 4. And more but I'm not at my bookshelf so I'll get back to you.

I looked at the Bobby Fisher one today, but is it just tactics problems? DS does those on my phone (and aggravates my DH by consistently having a higher rating than DH on his phone), so we wouldn't need that. I considered How to Beat your Dad--we have his other book, though, and I think it would be nice to get a different author. I will look at Polgar's stuff.

If you are looking for adult level chess books, we have many of those. My husbands chess books sit right above this computer. Most are fairly old since my husband doesn't spend a lot of time following chess anymore. Most of these are collections of famous games by grandmasters. This is one of the ways good chess players practice, is playing through other famous games. My husband would usually pull out a chess board when going over these games. I would imagine most these are probably a bit too dry for most kids, but if he is obsessed. A sample of book titles are "Opening Gambits", "How to play the Sicilian Defense", "World Champion at the Third Atempt" and "Chess Combinations as a Fine Art".

He isn't ready for adult books yet unless it's more of an "advanced beginner" book. Actually, I did get "Chess for Dummies" out of the library for him and he has been reading it some.He's sort of in a weird spot in that his chess play is a bit more advanced than the kinds of books he can easily comprehend, I think. The reading level of some of the stuff we find tends to be a little high for him (..."but then, Black sabotages the white queen with a sudden kamikaze attack..."--that kind of thing). Also, he does not love following algebraic notation, though he CAN. I guess he just needs to practice.

I found this the other day and he has been doing some of the courses:

http://www.chess.com/blog/webmaster/free-chess-mentor-courses

They're good, though he has a bit of the reading level issue again. There are these, too:

http://www.chesskid.com/articles?page=1

but I think he actually prefers the chess.com ones.

It makes me so annoyed. I have had Fritz and Chesster teach chess in my Amazon basket for weeks. I finally have the money to put my order through and that is the one item in my cart that cannot be shipped to NZ. It would cost me three times as much to buy the first disc from the Sydney chess academy as it would to get all three from amazon. Does anyone know another option?

I believe the first F&C is available as a download, perhaps even from Amazon. Can you check that?

I'm curious if others have had a decent experiences playing live on Chesskid.com. It seems like most of the time DS gets matched with a player approximately in his ability range (vs. way above), the other player either plays for a while and abandons, or constantly and annoyingly pesters for a draw. DS is rarely able to actually win due to this. Or he can hardly start a game because every player aborts due to a rating mismatch (I admit, he does this too, but only when it's wildly out of synch). He can play through to losses to players rated 150-200 points or more above him, but that's a little hard as a persistent habit. The app also crashes and is buggy a lot. Is it just us?

My son plays only on chess.com because the time control on chesskid is too short. He is learning to take his time and think through moves, and the chesskid games are just too short. There are many more players on chess.com as well, so he has a greater chance of being well paired.

Yes, the 15 min time control is a total drag. I just assumed he would be outrageously outmatched on chess.com and waste everyone's time.

Some American children are now getting lessons on Skype with less expensive foreign teachers:

Chess in cyber space: a smart move?
By Gillian Tett
Financial Times
July 25, 2014

I've seen articles about children getting tutored academically on Skype.

I wanted to update this thread as well to say that Chesskid no longer allows players to abort games without a ratings penalty. This has vastly improved the site experience for my son. We have now purchased a Gold membership and feel the site's many other resources (especially instructional videos) are really worth it for kids who may not have funds or time for much formal coaching. My son's game has improved from time on Chesskid this summer. (I sound like a plant, but I promise I'm not!)

That's great that Chesskid no longer allows players to abort games. My DS(x2) were put off by other players abandoning games.

Aborted games still happen (I'm not sure what causes them--system error?) but not at player request. It's no longer the case that you can see what your newly matched opponent's rating is and immediately abort with no consequence. You have to resign if you want out, and that affects your rating.

Ah, just found an article--from 10/14:

"UPDATE: The Abort Button is now gone. It has been replaced with a Resign Button (so be careful where you click)! From now on, when a game in Fast Chess starts, you should play it out, regardless of colors or rating. If you click Resign, you will lose rating points just like a regular loss."

This has really improved DS's experience. I recommend trying the site again.