re: Chess players. My 8yo and I just started playing chess and I need advice on how to play

My 7 year old started playing on the computer and it shows you which moves you can/can’t make(he got pretty good doing this). I bought a simple moves book to help me understand because he would have to explain to me each time we played.

Use the Sicilian Defense if you are black. Its the most used defense against white.

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Sicilian Defense

The Sicilian Defense is the most popular defense against white’s opening 1.e4 and is used extensively at top level play. It is a very aggressive defense and immediately stakes claim at the center, denying white the double pawns on e4 and d4. Many chess champions actually prefer to start with 1.d4 because of how well the Sicilian Defense plays against 1.e4.

Eventually the c-pawn of black is usually exchanged, opening the semi-open c file for black to bring his queen or rook to and add pressure to the queen side attack.

White not only has to worry about black’s defense but also the counter attack that the Sicilian Defense presents. White tends to have the advantage on the king side while black will usually look to attack on the queen side.

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Quoted for motherfricking truth.

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Cheers buddy.

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Sounds like we have a lot to learn.

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Not really. It's just like learning anything new. You just don't quite know the language yet.
They're abstract concepts with just a name until you experience it directly, which then makes it real to you (and therefore easy to understand).

Here. I'll give you a quick, crash course.

Forks - When a piece is attacking more than one piece at a time. The opponent has to pick his poison. Usually done with knights, but can be any piece.


Skewers - Attacking two pieces in a line with the more valuable piece under direct attack. After the valuable piece is moved by the opponent, the lesser piece can be captured.


Pins - Opposite of a skewer. Attacking two pieces in a line with the more valuable piece behind the piece being attacked (Usually against the King or Queen). This usually prevents the lesser piece from moving and opens up previously defended spaces to be used in the attack.


Tempos - Just means that you save a turn. Losing a tempo would be moving a piece twice when you could have just moved directly to the final square in one move. Gaining a tempo is when you can develop or re-position a piece without the opponent countering. This is typically done by placing the opponent's king in check and forcing an unproductive move.

Fianchettos - This is the process of trying to get your bishop on the long diagonal to maximize its effectiveness. Usually in the early portion of the game, and is achieved by moving the "B" or "G" pawn to open up the space to re-position the bishop.


Rook Lifts - Moving your rooks off of the back rank and providing much more active involvement in the game. Usually more of a mid-game tactic.


Castling - Fundamental part of the game. Only time you can move your king more than one space in a turn. I'll talk more about when rather than how. King vs Queen-side is a trade-off between safety and activity. Both will typically require an extra tempo to fully utilize the position (either to defend the A-pawn or to activate the rook).

King side - Most common and generally slightly safer, because the king ends up closer to the edge of the board and often all the pawns on the castled side are defended by the king. It is also often used as a waiting move. By castling, you use a tempo to see what the opponent is trying to do while securing your king's safety. A strong attack is usually required to break the king's castle.

Queen side - In queenside castling, the king is placed closer to the center and the pawn on the a-file is undefended; the king is thus often later moved to b1 to defend the a-pawn. In addition, queenside castling requires moving the queen, if not already done; therefore, it is usually done closer to the mid-game, often to avoid pressure being put on the king side (especially if the opponent has attempted to attack early in the game).
Additionally, if one player castles kingside and the other queenside, it usually results in a fierce fight, as both players' pawns are free to advance to attack the opposing king's castled position without exposing the player's own castled king. This is often a quite fun change-of-pace, but is a bit more risky.


En passant - A lesser known, but important tactic. It is a special pawn capture that can only occur immediately after a pawn makes a move of two squares from its starting square, when it could have been captured by an enemy pawn had it advanced only one square.


Pushing pawns - This is when you have entered the mid to late game. Although not as dynamic as moving Knights, Bishops, or Queens, slowly marching your pawns across the board towards promotion puts an enormous amount of pressure on the enemy. .. and it often leads to the win.
In the case of passed pawns (a passed pawn is when no opposing pawns are in the way to prevent it from moving), the enemy often has to formulate his/her entire strategy around stopping the pawn.



I'm not an expert by any means. And after playing for a short amount of time, most of these tactics become second nature. I just thought it would be helpful to show you some of the more common and fun parts of the game.

Try not to ruin your kid's excitement when he/she spots a fork and can't keep a poker face.

There is absolutely no replacement for playing another human on a real chess board. It will keep his interest up and introduce another dimension to chess (human interaction). They call this over-the-board chess. Apps and playing online is correspondance chess.

Have him join a local club. Joining USCF will allow for tournaments that actually do a good job of allowing people of all skill and experience levels be competetive and have fun. Of course theres lessons and teaching too.

Shameless brag, but around your sons age, I won a USCF National Championship. That was mostly because of rating system and age bracket. But I do have a 5ft tall nerd trophy that friends like to make fun of me for.