Musings on law, tech, chess & other topics by a geek

As I start working on curriculum for the upcoming 8 week chess class I am teaching at Perkins School. One of the things that I am doing for the class is a series of 1 page recommendations on chess books. I will be covering Chess 101, tactics, endgame, strategy, and game collections.

This week I am starting with Chess 101 books, for the actual class we will be using Lev Alburt’s Chess Course Volume I & II.  This is a great series that explains chess from the very basics.  Each volume is divided into lesson with a quiz at the end of the chapter.  I recommend working through one or two lessons a week and reviewing the material and practice exercises daily.  The very basics of chess includes a lot of memorization and patter recognition.  After these patterns are committed to memory students can move on to more advanced patterns and basic strategies. The Albert chess course volume I & II are actually part of a 7 volume series, the whole series is very good although the first two are the best.  The later books in the series do not have the lesson structure or the great quizzes.  I recommend these two volumes specifically for children, adults can learn from them two but they move a little slowly for adults.  Parents with little chess experience can easily work through the first two parts of this series without having played chess seriously.

For adults just starting to play chess I recommend Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan & Jeremy Silman. Yasser Seirawan, Seattle native and international chess grandmaster and 4-time US-champion. He is also one of my favorite chess commentator. Play Winning Chess is much heavier on prose then the Albert series and explains the game of chess from the basics. The focus on Play Winning Chess includes more vocabulary about chess and gives an adult the background needed to talk to other chess players.  The only down side is that the book is short on particle exercises. Although tt should be noted that this book is the first of a 4 book series that covers tactics and strategy in much more detail.

Enjoy the chess, Next up tactics.

Photo BY:  alanlight Under a CC BY License

In a little over a week I start teaching chess again after a 4 year break from the game.  I stopped playing back in 2005 to seriously pursue a career in the law, copyright and activism.  It has been a long haul through law school, and I am sure I made the right choices, but during this time I have missed chess greatly.  Chess is a game that challenges the mind and teaches valuable skills around focus, dedication and strategy.

My return to chess is promoted mostly by Gwen’s new school and my desire to help teach kids again.  When I lived in Vancouver WA, I taught chess at several local elementary and middle schools working with kids from age 5 to 14.  What amazed me the most about working with kids is how quickly they learn chess.  I did not pick up the game until my late high school years and not seriously until I was in my 20′s.  What took me months to learn about tactics kids could learn in weeks or even days.  Chess is like language acquisition, the younger you learn it the easier it is.  For now I am starting teach just at Gwen’s School, but I may be taking on a few students, in the coming weeks feel free to contact me if interested in studying chess either as a student or a peer.

I should start working on my tactics again I am sure they are uber rusty, also if i am going to recommend to a child that wants to play in tournaments to practice a bit every day they maybe I should too.

Photo By dlkinney under CC BY