Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Chess resources thread

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.