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Chess-training-guide by GM Susan Polgar
Solid Mechanics (MEB2024)
PETRONAS University of Technology
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Q Chess Training Guide K
for Teachers and Parents
Created by
Grandmaster Susan Polgar
U. Chess Hall of Fame Inductee
President and Founder of the Susan Polgar Foundation Director of SPICE (Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence) at Webster University FIDE Senior Chess Trainer 2006 Women’s World Chess Cup Champion Winner of 4 Women’s World Chess Championships The only World Champion in history to win the Triple-Crown (Blitz, Rapid and Classical) 12 Olympic Medals (5 Gold, 4 Silver, 3 Bronze) 3-time US Open Blitz Champion #1 ranked woman player in the United States Ranked #1 in the world at age 15 and in the top 3 for about 25 consecutive years 1st woman in history to qualify for the Men’s World Championship 1st woman in history to earn the Grandmaster title 1st woman in history to coach a Men's Division I team to 7 consecutive Final Four Championships 1st woman in history to coach the #1 ranked Men's Division I team in the nation
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Lesson 1
Lesson goals:
Excite kids about the fun game of chess Relate the cool history of chess Incorporate chess with education: Learning about India and Persia Incorporate chess with education: Learning about the chess board and its coordinates
Who invented chess and why?
Talk about India / Persia – connects to Geography
Tell the story of “seed”.
There can be possible homework relating to India and Persia. Do online search or lesson in class. What are the countries called today (which used to be called Persia)? What is the population of India? Which countries border India? What is the official language of India? Etc.
Introduce “The Chess Board”
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How many squares (64)? How many White / Black squares (32 each)?
What are Ranks (1-8), Files (a-h), Diagonals, Kingside, Queenside, etc.
The horizontal lines going up (1-8) are called Ranks, and the vertical lines from left to right (a-h) are referred to as Files. Diagonals are rows of squares of the same color slanting across the board. There are many diagonals on the chessboard. The side with the letters a through d is called Queenside and e-h called Kingside.
Practice Names of squares. Find a1, c4, g6 and so on.
Stress how chess can be used in the children’s everyday life, such as reading a map. (Geography)
Lesson 3
Lesson goals:
How to use your Pawns more effectively The “Break Through” in Pawn endgames Introduce a special “En passant” rule Relate to France / French culture
The importance of passed Pawns and how to create them!
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In the position above, White can sacrifice a Pawn to create a passed Pawn and promote it. Solution: 1 and after Black answers with 1.. 2 and the Pawn promotes on the next move.
In the position below
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White should continue with f4-f5, followed by f5-f6 creating a passed Pawn.
Show the basic pawn breakthrough with symmetrical Pawns.
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Solution: 1! The only move which wins! If Black plays 1..,` then 2! bxc6 3 or 1.. 2! bxa6 3. If it is Black to move the only correct defense is 1..! On the other hand, 1.. loses to 2! or 1.. loses to 2!
The “En passant” rule: When any Pawn moves two spaces up from its initial position, it may need to worry about an unexpected danger. En passant is a French expression used in chess. It means “In Passing”.
Let’s see an example:
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In the position above after Black plays 1..-d
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Lesson 4
Lesson goals:
Introducing the Rook The value of the Rook How the Rook moves and captures How the Rook can/should fight against Pawns
Introduce the Rook. Each side has two Rooks. Their starting positions are a1 and h1 for White and a8 and h8 for Black.
What does a Rook look like? A tower or castle
Value = 5 Points or equivalent to 5 Pawns
The Rook moves on “tracks like a train”. Always in straight lines, up, down, left, or right.
See examples of how to capture 8 Pawns (with no other pieces on the board, only White moves) with the Rook.
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Solution: The Rook can capture all the Black Pawns, in the following order: h7, g7, f7, e7, d7, c7, b7 and a7. Here is another example:
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Solution: The Rook can capture all the Black Pawns in the following order: a6, d6, d4, f4, f7, h7, h3 and
b3.
You can find many further examples in the “Chess Mazes” book.
See examples, when Rook versus Pawns, both sides are making moves.
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Which is the fastest way to capture the Black Pawn? 1 then Rxb
In the next position, White has to play accurately to make sure neither Black Pawn will promote.
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Here it would be wrong to attack the d4 Pawn with 1 because after 1.. 2 d3 one of the Black Pawns will promote. The correct answer is 1! and Black soon will lose both of the Pawns. For example: 1.. 2 d2 3.
Lesson 5
Lesson goals:
How a Rook can best help (or fight against) a Pawn Introduce the Bishop How the Bishop moves and captures Compare the values of the Pawn, Bishop and the Rook
Here is a basic Rook and Pawn versus Rook endgame principle: usually a Rook is better behind a Pawn whether it is your own or your opponent’s Pawn. See examples:
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In the position above, the White Rook should defend the Pawn on h4 from h1. (Defending from d4 makes no progress as Black would simply make waiting moves with the Rook along the h file) Then, after 1.. (which tries to prevent to Pawn from advancing), White makes a “waiting move” 2 or 2. After that the Black Rook must move away from h5, allowing White’s Pawn to advance. For example: 2.. 3 Rh6 4 Rh8 5 Rh7 6 Rh8 7.
On the other hand if the Rook of the defensive side is behind the Pawn, the Pawn cannot reach the promotion square successfully. Let’s reverse the color of the Rooks from our last example.
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Here Black can hold up White’s Pawn by playing 1.. and simply making moves along the h file. (By the way 1.. 2 Rd5 3 Rd6 4 Rd7 also works in this case.)
Of course it is important to stress that these are basic training examples, no other pieces on the board.
Introduce the Bishop. Each side has two Bishops. Their starting positions are c1 and f1 for White and c and f8 for Black.
What does the Bishop look like? Show several Bishops from various sets. The slit symbolizes the two- pointed hat that Catholic Bishops wear.
Value = 3 Points or equivalent to 3 Pawns
The Bishop moves only on diagonals consisting of the same color squares as the Bishop is on. It can never move to a different color square than where it starts at the beginning of the game.
Show examples of how to capture 8 Pawns (with no other pieces on the board, only White moves) with the Bishop.
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Solution: The Bishop can capture all of Black’s Pawns (assuming that only White moves), in the
following order: a4, c6, f3, h5, f7, e6, c4 and a2.
You can use the “Chess Mazes” book for further examples.
Play a few games 2 Bishops vs. 2 Rooks, each starting in their regular starting positions. If within 15 moves neither side won any piece it’s a draw. Whoever captures a piece wins the game. If one side wins a Bishop but on the next move the other side can capture a Rook, the side winning the Rook wins (as it is a more valuable piece).
Do math exercises. What is worth more? 1 Rook or 2 Bishops? 7 Pawns or a Rook? etc.
However, attacking the Pawn from d4 would not serve the same purpose: 1 f6! 2 h5 3 h 4 h3 5 and after 5.. the Pawn cannot be caught.
Introduce the Queen. Each side has one Queen. Their starting positions are d1 for White and d8 for Black.
What does the Queen look like?
Value = 9 Points or equivalent to 9 Pawns / 2 Bishops and 3 Pawns / 2 Bishops and 1 Knight / 2 Knights and 1 Bishop / 1 Bishop or 1 Knight and 6 Pawns, etc.
The Queen moves on files, ranks and diagonals. It is like a combination of a Rook and Bishop.
Show examples of how to capture 8 Pawns (with no other pieces on the board, only the side with the Queen moves) with the Queen.
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The following is the correct order of captures: h5, a5, c7, g3, e3, e6, f6 and b2.
Lesson 7
Lesson goals:
How can the Queen can be used effectively against Pawns The “8 Queens Puzzle” on an empty board Compare the value of the Queen to other pieces Introduce the King How does the King move and capture
Practice more examples of Queen fighting against the Pawns. Play out Queen versus 8 Pawns in their starting position. The easier example would be White to move first. To make it a little more challenging, let Black moves first.
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In this position, White should win against the eight Pawns because none of the Black Pawns are advanced.
The more advanced the Pawns are (meaning the closer to the promotion square they are) the more dangerous they are.
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In this position, even though the Black Pawns are only one square away from promotion, they can be stopped by 1!
Lesson 8
Lesson goals:
Introduce “Castling” Introduce the Knight. How does the Knight move and capture The “Knight Tour” The Knight’s value compared to the other pieces
Explain the purpose of castling, when you can and cannot castle.
What does the Knight look like?
Value = 3 Points or equivalent to 3 Pawns or 1 Bishop
It’s also commonly referred to as horse or horsy. The Knight is the only piece which can jump over another piece. The Knight always alternates jumping from light to dark squares and then again dark to light and so on. It jumps in an L-shape.
Show examples of how to capture 8 Pawns (with no other pieces on the board, only the side with the Knight moves) with the Knight.
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Solution: The Knight will capture all of Black’s Pawns (assuming that only White moves), in the following order: a3, b5, c7, e6, f4, h5, g3 and e4.
Show how a centralized Knight (in the middle of the board) has so many more choices of moves (8) than one in the corner (2).
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Try to jump with the Knight from one square to another covering all 64 squares on the chess board, landing only once on each square. Here is one of the countless solutions to the “Knight tour”. The Knight starts at square #1 and ends at #64. Here is a wonderful link to practice it: mindmagician/tour3.aspx
If you are really interested to learn more about this fascinating subject read this: en.wikipedia/wiki/Knight%27s_tour
Now let’s see how the Rook and the Bishop checkmate:
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The Rook checkmates on h5 and the Bishop on e4.
And finally let’s see a Knight and a Pawn checkmate.
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The Knight checkmates on f7 (which is called as smothered mate) and the Pawn checkmates on g7.
The number one requirement to give checkmate is to attack the opponent’s King with one of our pieces. It can be any piece except our own King. A King can never ever directly attack the enemy King. The second requirement is – and this is the one which differentiates a check from a checkmate – to make sure the King has no escape.
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Let’s see now some situations when it is almost checkmate but not quite.
In the next position, Black is in check but not checkmate.
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The Black King can move out of the check to g8.
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Is Black checkmated in the above position? No, because the Black Queen can take the White Queen.
And here is an example when the check will be blocked by another piece interposing.
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The Black King is in check and cannot escape. The White Rook cannot be captured either. Is it a checkmate? No, because the Black Bishop can block the check on h7.
So, it is checkmate when the enemy King is under a direct attack and: 1. The King has no safe square to move to 2. It is not possible to block the check 3. It is not possible to capture the piece that is checking the King.
Chess-training-guide by GM Susan Polgar
Course: Solid Mechanics (MEB2024)
University: PETRONAS University of Technology
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