How Chess Can Make Your Child a Genius

Good parents will make sure that their child is not only physically healthy but mentally fit, too. There are many ways to develop a child’s mind, and playing certain games like chess is one of them. In fact, chess is known to make geniuses out of children. Chess has always been associated with people who excel in critical thinking, but it can be played and enjoyed by anyone, regardless of age or mindset.

Many studies show that chess can improve a child or an adult’s critical thinking abilities and memory because it helps stimulate the prefrontal cortex and dendrites that are in charge of coordinating self-control, planning, and judgment as well as conducting brain signals. Students in an NYC chess program were found to have better reading scores compared to non-chess playing students, and another study showed that 4,000 students in Venezuela showed a marked improvement in their IQ scores after four months of being taught how to play chess.

The brain is like a muscle that requires exercise to prevent degradation and injury, and chess is a way to keep the brain active and stimulated. By introducing your child to chess at a young age, he or she is likely to do better in school and become a better team player way into adulthood. Research also showed that chess could boost a child’s problem-solving, math, reading, and critical thinking abilities.

Chess experts and coaches typically recommend getting your child started at chess by second grade, but some kids may be ready to play by the time they are four or five. Chess may help turn your child into a creative genius, too, since it keeps the right brain active. Apart from turning your child into a genius, chess may help build his self-confidence, as well, especially if he gets to play with like-minded kids and older children of different skill levels.

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Advanced Chess Strategies

Learning chess is like learning a new language. You need to play it regularly so you can improve and grasp the skills and strategies needed to win. Chess ‘strategies’ involve setting long-term goals in every game and achieving them, while ‘tactics’ focus on immediate moves. Both aspects go together, since a strategic goal can typically be achieved with the right tactics, and a tactical opportunity is based on the strategy of play you used previously. Signing up for online chess classes can help you understand advanced chess strategies and learn how to use them well. Here are some of the advanced chess strategies you should know about:

• Do not let your opponent open a file on your king if you castled.

• Once you have developed a piece, try not to move it again until you have developed other pieces.

• Develop pieces with the goal of making them coordinate properly with one another. Otherwise, you may find your attacks weak, and you could end up in a losing situation.

• Eliminate communication between the pieces of your opponent.

• Seize the center for control, so you can attack better and gain more play.

• Find a weak spot in the position of your opponent. Knowing and taking advantage of your opponent’s weakness is crucial in chess.

• Avoid any premature attacks on your opponent. Do not attack unless you have enough force in the field to make it successful. Premature attacks typically cause the player to lose.

• Avoid making exchanges that can develop another piece for your opponent.

• Exchange an active piece with an active and similar piece from your opponent.

• Do not be greedy. There are times when you may find it easy to take your opponent’s pawn, but beware—it could be a trap designed to give your opponent the opportunity to become more powerful.

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4 Tips for Selecting the Best Chess Classes Online

One of the great challenges people face is to be able to adapt. Yet, change is the one constant in a world that is always evolving. This applies to people as much as it does to technology. We live in a world that would have been the envy of visionaries of the past – any information we seek is always at our fingertips. How we use this resource is up to us. Among other things, it provides a novel approach to pursue a desire or improve your skill. Online chess lessons is a bit of both, and then some more.

If you are a beginner and want to take chess lessons, then you do not have to hire a personal coach. You can easily learn chess by studying it online. Many professional players and institutions share various strategies and tactics of chess on their websites or other online forums that you can access through your laptop or phone from the comfort of your home.

But in the abundance of choices, it is not easy to choose the right institution or coach, especially online. It is not easy to trust someone you have not met in life. When it comes to teaching, the skills and services offered by the person or institution become a serious matter. You must invest time in learning only from the best.

You should consider these pointers before choosing the best chess classes for you online:

Take the Free Trial: Many online institutes and coaches offer a free trial period in which you can join the classes for free for a certain period of time and see if you are comfortable with the information provided by them. Then you can sign up with them and pay the cost of the course. In that trial period, you can evaluate their approach towards the game and their students. If you find them considerable, enough you can move ahead in the process of selection.

Take Them into Consideration: When you are satisfied with the teachings of an online coach or institute in the trial period, you can look for their credentials and see how they are treating their students. If they are attending to their students and properly addressing their issues, you can keep them on your list. Do not forget to ask for the complete information related to their charges, timings, schedule, and other small things. It will help you find out if their services will suit your schedule and preference or not.

Perform a Background Check: You should do a proper check on your online coach or institution regarding their experience, course structure, and qualification. Not every grandmaster is a good teacher, but they certainly carry a lot of experience with them that can be useful to you. Also, ask from their students for their experiences with them, it will give you a clear idea about whether to choose them or not.

Charges: The price charged by any coach or institute can be a deciding factor in your selection process. Before paying upfront, try making a budget for your training and proceed accordingly. It will help you save some money and to help you choose better.

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Control the Course of the Game with the Best Chess Opening Strategy

Chess opening strategies are crucial to win a chess game. Good strategies allow you to gain a quick control of the center, safeguard your king, create positions to mount an attack and prevent any weak links in the pawns. Moreover, pieces are placed in such a way that they protect each other.

There are quite a few chess opening strategies and the best one for you will depend on two factors: your strategy for the game and the expertise of your opponent. There are essentially two popular types of openings, viz., king's pawn openings and queen's pawn openings. Here are some famous chess opening strategies that you should know if you are into chess:

King's pawn openings: Each of these openings start with the move: e4 where the white pawn in front of the king moves forward two places. Some important king's pawn openings are:

• Sicilian Defense
• Alekhine Defense
• Caro-Kann Defense
• French Defense
• Scandinavian Defense

Queen's pawn openings: Here the opening starts with the move: d4 where the white pawn in front of the queen moves forward two places. Some famous queen’s pawn openings are:

• Stonewall Attack
• Blackmar-Diemer Gambit
• Trompowsky Attack
• London System

These openings are sometimes also divided into open games, closed games, semi-open games, semi-closed games and flank openings.

Here are some of the famous opening strategies classified according to the above categorization:

Open games: White plays e4 and black counters with e5

• King's Gambit
• Ruy Lopez
• Scotch Game
• Italian Game

Closed games: White plays d4 and black counters with d5

• Queen’s Gambit
• London System
• Slav Defense
• Torre Attack

Semi-open games: White plays e4 and black plays anything other than e5

• Sicilian Defense
• Caro-Kann Defense
• Alekhine’s Defense
• Modern Defense
• Scandinavian Defense

Semi-closed games: White plays d4 and black counters with a move other than d5

• Indian defense
• King’s Indian Defence
• Queen’s Indian Defence
• Nimzo-Indian Defence
• Black Knights’ Tango
• Dutch Defense
• Benoni Defense

Flank openings: The opening moves are played with the white starting with flanking moves

• King’s Indian Attack
• Réti
• Bird's Opening
• English Opening

These are just a few of the many opening moves in chess and mastering even a few of these will make you a strong chess player. Start with one of the many options and get set on your way to becoming a chess master.

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Online Chess: Improves Children Cognitive and Critical Thinking Skills

Chess is an excellent game which requires the players to focus, think and then make a decision. While adults who love playing chess can spend hours on it, it is highly recommended that even children should be trained to play chess.

Playing chess comes with a host of benefits for the children which have been confirmed in many scientific studies. The game is known to improve the cognitive and critical thinking skills of the children and makes them a better decision maker.

Let us try to know the benefits of playing chess for children in detail.

• Improves IQ: While children are not required to go through an encyclopedia to play chess, the game helps in improving their thinking abilities. Children use many different areas of their brain to play the game which in turn strengthens their brain muscles and sharpens their mind. Moreover, it is the impatience that often leads to children and adults making the wrong decision. Chess helps them to think slowly and make their moves very patiently.

• Independent Decision-Making: While playing, children make the moves on their own without consulting anyone. This helps in improving their decision-making abilities which can prove very beneficial in the later stages of life as well.

• Improves Problem-Solving Abilities: While playing chess, children learn to analyze the problem from all the different angles and then make the best possible decision. When they make a move, good or bad, they get to see live results of their decisions and over time, this can help in improving their problem-solving skills and will make them understand that there can be consequences to bad decisions.

Apart from these, skills like mathematics, language, reading and memory are also improved through various aspects of playing chess. As you can see, children can gain incredible benefits from chess and the skills that they learn at this young age will continue to help them in later stages of life as well.

Blog Source URL: http://www.chesscoachonline.com/online-chess-improves-children-cognitive-and-critical-thinking-skills

How to Improve Evaluation Skills by Learning Chess Openings Online

Chess openings are a set of first few standard moves that are termed as the ’book of moves.’ These moves generally signify geometric notations, tree structures, etc. The Oxford companion to chess lists about a thousand openings that characterize positional play and gradually build up to tactical moves. A player who starts the game without a set pattern or deviates from the stated theories is said to move ’out of book.’

A good opening ensures control over a wider area of the board for mobility of the pieces and provides better protection to the king and other important pieces. Moreover, a strategically planned game gives you the opportunities to capture the opponent’s pieces and ruin their defenses. These are all categorized under the theory of plans. To start with, you need to give a direction to your game that is determined by the first few moves – the opening. In the mid-game, the efforts are focused on gaining control over the board and knocking down defenses. Towards the end of the game, strategize the way to checkmate the opponent. But, it is always important to follow patterns and then figure out what the next move should be. Observing and analyzing moves at every stage of a game is a form of evaluation. This skill also helps in the real world with the ability to plan and execute strategies for the important things in your life like saving money, preparing for a final, or buying a new home.

People always learn better when taught by an experienced teacher. For chess, a good tutor is trained professional who has in-depth knowledge of the game. They not only know what the best moves are but also how to teach them to new players. Experienced professionals know how fast students pick up the skills and find areas that need work. It is more than learning tricks and strategies with ease. To truly master something, there is no easy path. But a tutor or coach can ensure that what you learn lasts a lifetime. Online chess coaches are a viable source to improve your skill set and have a better control over the game.

More than learning what to move, it is important to learn why to do so. Once you start evaluating your moves, you will start predicting the opponents’ moves too. With rigorous practice games and continuous evaluation of every move, you will learn to detect the direction in which the game is headed. Then you can plan a counter offense or alter your defensive strategy. It is an all-around exercise for development of the brain and the skills acquired are equally useful in life’s other areas.

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Chess learning software – Learn Chess, the game of kings

Are you aware that there are online chess tutorials, which helps you to learn and rehearse the ancient game and help you become an expert?

Chess learning software is designed to teach a player from the very beginning. So, when you download the software, it teaches you all about chess, from the rudiments of the game, what it involves, the various pieces, their moves and so on.

So, for one who would love to know all about chess and how it is played, the software presents a holistic approach and makes them understand the game better. 

There are various ways in which a game of chess can be played. Although the basic game is the same, and every player aims towards attacking the enemy King and say ‘Check’ and ‘Mate’ at the end, the opening theory or the endgame strategy is what makes a winner. 

Thus, the Chess software first trains you towards achieving a certain level of competence in the game, where you learn to play chess efficiently. Once you are satisfied with your approach, style and the way of the game, the software allows you to proceed to the next level. With each practise game, you take a step towards excellence. 

Thus, with regular training, and constant supervision from online tutors, if you engage them, you can become an expert chess player and come out as a winner in every single game of Kings and Rooks.

The game of Chess is both mind-boggling and a stimulator to your brains. This is one game that lets you use your mind and enhance its capacity each time you play.  Thus, download the chess software, to give your mind wings to fly and soar up high to reach excellence in every aspect of your life.