My daughter is 4 years old, and she plays checkers very well for her age. She asked me if she can learn how to play chess too. So I am interested in what is the best age to start teaching her. Is it too early to do this? Does anyone have any experience?
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Depending on several factors, the age to start teaching a child to play chess can vary. The mere fact that she asked you how she can play chess is a good sign that she is interested in learning. Interest is one of the key factors because we don't want to force-feed them the game. If I had to pick an age, I would say 4 is a good age, but it depends also on maturity. I would also say not to expect too much and let her have fun. A great place to start is http://wwww.chesskid.com My 2 (almost 3 year old) stumbled upon |
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You can teach your daughter how to play the game at any age, especially if she is curious. I remember asking my father to teach me around the age of 4, and while I was not very good at the game, I was at least able to understand how the pieces moved. It became my favorite game to play as a child, and I would constantly challenge my father to games, and even win some (I'm certain he let me win). If your daughter is asking, you should teach her. |
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Any age, IMO. My father taught me to play at about 6. Oh, and lead by example - take your kid to your local USCF chess club and become a member. Play, show good sportsmanship, etc etc. Chess is empowering for kids; as long as they are polite they can kick the crap out of adults and people reward them for it, lol. |
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Whenever she wants to learn. And let her choose the pace. |
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If she is interested, go ahead. Maybe you should start with one of the minichess variants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minichess |
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I've heard of high level chess players starting at a young age. One such story is Yelena Dembo. She played her first rated tournament at 3 years 9 months: http://yelenadembo.com/about-me But there are plenty of high level players that start later, so I wouldn't consider early play a requirement to reach that level. Not that that is necessarily your goal, ha! I think the two key pieces are 1. interest and 2. attention span. If 1 is there but not 2, you should definitely start with some mini games, as recommended in another answer. I sincerely hope I can instill an interest in mine when she's a bit older--partly selfishly as I'd like to have someone to play with, and it would be great if we could go to tournaments together. But I also believe that chess is a good developmental tool that teaches critical decision making, attention, sportsmanship, pattern recognition, among many other things, I'm sure. I've purchased the rather new "Chess is Child's Play" book, which I haven't looked at much so far--it has exercises for 2-4 years old, and instructions for teaching 4+. My 16-month-old can't even lift my triple-weighted chess set yet (it's all in one bag--probably weighs about 5 lbs). She very much likes to take the pieces out (to give them to me) and I show her how they set up on the board. Then she likes to pick them up and give them to me to put them back in the bag (we do this a couple times a day--she goes over and points at the chess set when she wants to play with it). She likes the knights, especially. Little horses! If only there were a set with ducks as pawns, or something. I think that would be a hit. |
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As early as |
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My daughter just turned 4 and she knows how every piece moves, which is great IMO, but it is frustrating at times because I wish I could teach her more things at once. However, I do not force her, it is actually the other way around There is not a single day that she does not ask me something about the pieces or anything related to the game. She knows what is a rank and a file but she doesn't quite understand what is diagonal, she is starting to locate coordinates on the board but that's about it. I bought her a plastic chess set with figurines instead of the classic Staunton pieces, that way the queen actually looks like one, and so does the king and the rest of the pieces, believe me, that for a kid at that age it helps a lot, she can now set up the board and pretend to play with her 2 yr old sister, until the imaginary fight between the two sides gets real. |
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I taught my younger sister at 4. Partly because she was extremely good at adult-type jigsaw puzzles, I was sure her pattern recognition capabilities were up to it, and her ability to be still and concentrate for a reasonable amount of time. I would look for that sort of sign of readiness. |
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My son is 5 Yrs, he is an expert at making stuff with lego like blocks and had learned pre school stuff before most of the other kids his age (in my locality), he also speaks/converses in 3 languages quite well. With this I assumed he would be good at chess. Two months ago I introduced him to chess, explained the rules, within 2 days and 7 - 8 games he managed to learn all the rules(I withheld en-passant and castling), by game 15 he was moving all pieces correctly, initially he had a problem understanding why the rook which is smaller (shorter) than a bishop was not to be exchanged with it. Also he would be very careless in keeping pieces especially knight and queen where it would be at the risk of being taken. I tried training him with only few pieces on the board and showing how not to keep the pieces where it can be taken, not surprisingly he was very good at identifying the threats, I guess it is because there are only 3 - 4 pieces on board and that makes it simpler to observe. Its been quite a lot of games since then, almost 40-50 but still he does not keep supporting pieces when keeping/moving them in the front under threat. I notice that he is sometimes/most-of-the-time interested in just moving his pieces, and does not pay attention to the opponents move. He told me a few days ago that, how come you are always winning! He has actually not learnt to do addition and subtraction in school yet and maybe that is why he does not understand losing 2 pieces in exchange for 3 is not good! I am almost concluding here that maybe he should have grasped the concept of profit/loss by understanding addition and subtraction before I taught him chess, now I have reduced the frequency of play, maybe none or 2 in a week. I think I will stop it completely and reintroduce it when he has learnt addition/subtraction well and/or is around 7 or 8 years old. And with Gariks tip maybe I will teach him checkers! |
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If your daughter "plays checkers very well and asks you if she can learn to play chess also," she's ready. Some people are ready at age 4, others aren't ready at age 40. It all depends on the person. It's best if you let THEM tell you (as your daughter has) when they're ready. Jose Raoul Capablanca learned to play chess at age four, and became world champion. |
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