A post about what allows younger and younger players to succeed in chess. Big time. “Nowadays, when you’re not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it” ~Vishy Anand Light comes from within! The boy you see in the head picture is Tamizh Amudhan, an 8 year-old from Sivakasi, India. Recently the power went […]
A post about how chess lends itself to stubborn moves; on and off the board. “I believe most definitely that one must not only grapple with the problems on the board, one must also make every effort to combat the thoughts and will of the opponent” -Mikhail Tal The stiff shoulders of giants Some of […]
A post about moves that perplex, amaze, and blow our minds Chess Ageism When teaching kids, I sometimes mention how we grew up playing 2 hours for 40 moves, and an hour for the remainder. I even tell them how we would spent one hour on a particularly hard move. “What’s wrong with you people! […]
The Missing Puzzle-Piece Once when I was studying chess with my coach, I realized that most mistakes I made were because of insufficient will power. Both in training and over the board. At a 2300+ level the knowledge players have is similar, along with evaluations and understanding. Yet when it came to skills like finding […]
A post about the balance between objectivity and subjectivity in classical chess A week ago, I was preparing my girlfriend for her tournament games. Since most players have some level of tournament anxiety (congrats if you’re a cool-blooded unicorn), we were working on disassociation. “Remember, at the board, you’re not you” I said. “You’re a […]
Problems worth solving The first chess book I went through was the Soviet Chess Primer by Ilya Maizelis, which made me love the game. Even if it was hard at times, it had a sense of humour based on the studies of Sam Loyd, and other funny positions. https://lichess.org/study/Pz2NCuaY/rB5dAWBN The answer starts with 1.Bb6! […]
“There’s no remorse like the remorse of chess” ~HG Wells Every experienced player has had devastating losses. 6-hour marathons gone wrong, carefully constructed completely winning positions butchered by one reckless move, or opening disasters where you’re the deer in the headlights of your opponent’s gambit. Looking at my past losses as well as those of […]
It was 6 minutes before the start of the round and I was desperately looking at the King’s Indian Gligoric variation on my weak phone engine to find something, anything. It’s not like the line was likely to happen, as my IM opponent could play the English, the London, the Exchange King’s Indian or the […]
Many of us have heard, lived, shunned, or dodged the term ADHD—Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. We’ve all witnessed that energetic kid who disturbs the class and struggles to sit still and pay attention. We’ve all worked with an adult who falls asleep during meetings. We all know someone who despite trying so hard just can’t seem to […]
首先来用一组数据表明学习国际象棋的有益之处： 2011年亚美尼亚就将国际象棋列入小学课程，美国部分州也将国际象棋引入小学课堂； 美国宾夕法尼亚州教育局对学生进行五年的研究，发现学习国际象棋的孩子平均成绩提高17.3%,学习其他课外活动平均成绩提高4.5% ； 美国心理学家Stuard Margulies博士研究纽约和洛杉矶的孩子发现，学习国际象棋的小学生阅读成绩比没有学习过国际象棋的孩子高10% 2015年美国一项研究，选择有医生诊断多动症的孩子每周学习国际象棋两次，结果发现学生在集中注意力和听指令能力方面有显著改善。 荷兰出版的国际学术杂志《认知脑研究》，曾发表专家研究报告说：下棋可以促进人类较少使用的右脑发展，下棋涉及的不只是单一性的智力活动，而是综合性的智力活动。 国际象棋学习达到一定水平后，学习成绩远远比没有学国际象棋的学生要好得多。美国有一项研究证实，会下棋的小学生比不会下棋的同龄人在阅读考试中的分数要高出10%，学棋5年的孩子比那些没有接触过棋类的孩子在阅读理解方面要高出4.3个学分，而在数学方面要高出6.4个学分。这个结果说明下棋这项运动能使大脑进行高强度的锻炼，可以提高孩子的视觉记忆力、注意广度和空间推理能力。它要求孩子做出一系列的决策，每一步棋都会帮助他们学会未雨绸缪、权衡利弊、逻辑性地决定最理想的选择。 孩子学棋找对学校会事半功倍，CCYC加拿大国际象棋青少年俱乐部真诚邀请您来一起见证，您的孩子也可以开心快乐的拥有最强大脑。 以下是多伦多著名华人媒体“新时代电视台”采访主教练Mike的专题片————青少年学习国际象棋的好处