The Basics for Tournament Players

This Saturday, the Youth Chess Foundation of Chicago will hold a scholastic chess tournament at Bell Elementary School, where they will introduce a new competition section for “novices,” kids who are playing in their very first tournament. The idea is to get novices playing other novices and avoid having some 8th-grade “Beginner” who’s played in ten tournaments but not yet advanced to Intermediate crush some kindergartener like an aluminum can and scare the latter away from chess competition forever.

Okay, so maybe the imagery is a bit over the top, but you get the idea. I think it’s a good one.

At least three Ray kids plan to play in the Novice section, and for them, as well as anyone else who needs a refresher on the basics for tournament play, we offer these aides for brushing up. The things your child should be prepared with are:

• Scholar’s Mate. Know how to use it and how to avoid having it used on you. Go here and here for the details.
• Basic Checkmates. The two main ones are rook & king vs. king and queen & king vs. king. These are basic techniques that are used to finish the kind of endgames that frequently come up. Once your child masters the techniques, winning these games is second nature.
• Opening Guidelines. Go here for the most common openings.
• Review GM Arthur Bisguier’s Ten Tips for Winning Chess.

Review these as well as you can with your kids before Saturday, and they should be ready. Now, as Bruce Pandolfini would say, go out there and be brilliant.

Scholar's Mate: the Movie

Check out this hilarious film clip.



Of course, the opening sequence commonly known as Scholar’s Mate (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qxf7#) is not just a funny video; it is, as Chess Corner observes, “the most common trap a beginner falls into.”

It’s common because it’s an easy way for the attacker to get a fast and, some would say, cheap victory. Scholar’s Mate works by exploiting the weakness of the opponent’s f7 pawn, which at the beginning of the game is guarded only by the King. If you can quickly build up an attack on that square and send in your Queen with protection, your opponent’s King can neither escape nor capture the attacking piece. The heartbreaking result: checkmate on Move 4.

Because Scholar’s Mate is so widely played in scholastic tournaments and chess clubs, it should be one of the first things every new player learns. Learning the right defensive moves is all it takes.

Scholar’s Mate raises ethical questions, most notably: Should you yourself use it when you suspect your novice opponent may not be prepared for it? One could argue that every new player should be on the receiving end of Scholar’s Mate once, just so he or she knows what it’s like and learns to combat it. I won’t pass judgment on the issue, but if nothing else all chess kids should know Scholar’s Mate and how to avoid it. Go here to learn how to do that.