The themes in the Plus section concentrate very much on the improving of board vision.
Ready made lessons, hints how to use the workbooks, how to give assistance, and so on.
The manual is a great support for the trainer, even if he is an experienced one. There are special books available for children from 6 till about 9 years old: the Stepping stones.ĭownload excerpts of each book: Samples Manual for chess trainers Step 1
The 'first Step' consists of a manual for the trainer and workbooks for the students: Step 1, Step 1 extra, Step 1 plus and Step 1 mix. Children learn to play chess very well, for sure if they get enough time in between to play and practice. This sounds astonishing and even incredible but up till now, practice has shown that this approach works perfectly. Learning how to mate is postponed as long as possible. Furthermore, much attention is paid to developing of the basic skills, necessary to play chess.Ĭomparing with other books for beginners the step-by-step method introduces an unique sequence of the teaching material.
'It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom,' Einstein.In the first step all the rules of the chess game are introduced. The 1929 insight from Nimzovich, one of most influential chess thinkers ever, cognitive sciences findings, learning theory, the complex systems theory, everything speaks in favor of a radical PARADIGM SHIFT in how we should start teaching chess That is how any interest and enjoyment vanish quickly with too, too many simply walking away from the game, never moving on beyond the first purgatory stage of their "chess education." Without these two ingredients there is no value and no progress in any domain of human endeavor. The moves just come from (1) what you plan to do (=purpose), and this comes from (2) understanding the situation of interrelated agents (=spatial/functional relationships).īy teaching with (1) and (2) entirely out of the picture, there comes no MEANING and COMPREHENSION. Like in any other conflict situation with power agents in space and time, it is all about how warring sides USE and EXCHANGE power. What's wrong with that approach? Well, if chess is a war game, than we should start teaching with firing POWER pieces possess. Yet, as we all know, every single schess primer starts with "the moves!" So what is the problem? Amazingly, it is "the moves" first, which, according to Nimzovich (1929) is a "fundamentally flawed" way of teaching an absolute beginner. As a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, we end up with around 1,000 experts players (2,000+ rating) in the US, a 350 million population (a horrible achievment rate, no better anywhere else in the world). Good luck!Ĭhess primers, and the traditional way of how we start teaching/learning, are the weakest link of chess education. Finally, you can frequently find some good prices on used books on Amazon. I consider his "Weapons of Chess" to be a must-read-first-book introdution to positional concepts. In general Pandolfini has written some very good chess books targeted primarily to the novice audience. Both Pandolfini books deal with this but the "Workshop" book has a very thorough treatment of the topic. For example, one endgame concept/technique you should learn like the back of your hand is "Opposition". Try to go through as much of those two books as you can, before moving on to other endgame books.
As for endgame - for the novice, I recommend the two endgame books in the list by Bruce Pandolfini - "Pandolfini's Endgame Course" (be sure to download the errata sheet using the link provided in the list) and "Endgame Workshop". You should be able to finish the Bobby Fischer book very quickly.
Anyway, thanks again for the recommendation, you're a hero! I'm also using an app on my phone to memorize some of the basic endgames (king and rook vs lone king, etc) and I've played a bit with my fiance, so I got her to download the app so we can play online :) Unfortunately, I don't have many friends who play chess so I'm mostly limited to online games or chess engines, hopefully I'll find a chess club near me soon. It looks like it will be a great guide to help me get started. Thanks mate! I found a copy of "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" at a local used bookstore yesterday and bought it on your recommendation. Chess is a great game for the rest of your life. Every new chess player friend of mine who read it said it helped them a great deal to get started understanding tactics. You might want to check out the book "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess".
I think there is something good in the list for everyone who doesn't already have "Master" in their title.