re: Chess: Who here plays it?

quote:

---

How do you get started in kids tournaments.

---

Does his school have a club? Here in Houston there are regular tournaments that you can sign up for. USChess, and others track your scores and ranking for tournament pairings. Small membership fee.

Plus, this guy gets it:

quote:

---

FIDE is the chess federation. Idk if the us chess federation has a website for local tournaments or something but I would look there. Have your son do puzzles on chess.com. It’s a great way to rapidly improve on basic tactics.

---

Get him on Chess.com and get him a diamond subscription, this will allow him unlimited puzzles and unlimited game reviews so he can go back and analyze where he did well and what he did wrong in past games. I didn’t know how the pieces moved until I was 23. I got up to 1000 elo in a couple of years playing casually but to push beyond 1000 elo you need to study openings. The chess GMs nowadays use Stockfish which is like Chess AI engine to find out new strategies that work and their opponents haven’t had the opportunity to prepare for. That’s the unfortunate part of chess that Bobby Fischer used to bitch about, at the high level, it’s just about preparation, no creativity.

You ever taken him to chess museum in st.louis. I hear if ur into it, it's pretty cool place

Mediocre at best. I take forever to make a move and when I do I keep my hand on the chess piece and reverse the move very often.

I've played for years. I haven't done a tournament in 15 years though and doubt I could beat someone rated above 1400.

As others have mentioned, chess.com is a good place to learn and get games in.

I read, "How To Play Better Chess" when I was starting out. It's by a guy named Reinfeld. It breaks down opening, middle and end game strategy. There are plenty of good books, but your kid may be like mine and doesn't like to read.

He needs to play and notate his games. Because the only way to get good at chess is to lose at chess (a lot) and learn from losing. You can do all of that online now, but online doesn't have the same feel (to me) as in person games.

If he can make it though the losing portion of learning, he will have years of fun ahead of him.

quote:

---

Is Magnus considered tGOAT in the computer era?

---

Yes. Watching his games gives me a headache from thinking too much . I like to pause it and try to figure out what he's planning and never can. Dude is a freak. He says that chess is just his hobby.

I really like watching Anna Cramling's youtube channel. Both of her parents are grandmasters if I remember right.

Sadly when I was a kid I bought into the notion that chess was for nerds. I wish I had an activity like that to give me some structure back when I was in HS. I’m teaching my 11 yo niece and 7 yo nephew how to play now.

Look up Chess Kid & Magnus Trainer. If your kid shows promise, and starts doing well in online chess tournments (find via Google), people who can take things to the next level will find you.