Chess Class — Beginner Level

Description

This chess course offers a stellar way to increase your calculation abilities and add new modes of deduction to your everyday life. By adequately explaining multiple concepts of chess, we hope to foster improvement in beginner players and teach newer players the basics in chess. Chess teaches students how to focus, patiently make important decisions, and to think creatively. Chess is composed of reasoning, solving problems, and analysis to make multiple decisions throughout the game. Many of these traits can be attributed to other things in life, such as better concentration in school, academic mastery, and finer decision-making skills. Whilst learning the game of chess, students will learn etiquette, patience, respect, and develop a more positive outlook to difficult situations outside the classroom.

What do I learn?

-Introduction to pieces, Background, Rules of the game

-Notation, Basic Terminology

-Weaknesses and strengths of every piece

-Piece Exchanges, Piece Value, Comparing Similar Piece Value

-Identification of Pins, Skewers, Forks

-Learn how to Checkmate, Stalemate, Simple Checkmates

-Solving one move checkmates and two move checkmates

-Solving simple tactics

-Solving simple endgames

-Introduction to basic openings for white and black

-What to do in the opening

-Basic Openings Introduction

-What to do in the middlegame (Middlegame Strategy)

-What to do in the endgame

-Learn the importance of King Safety and how to protect the King

Course Breakdown

History of Chess + The Chess Board (Powerpoint to explain the history of chess + share chessbase board and introduce notation for each square, introduce terminology (diagonals, ranks, files)

Rules: Introduce checkmate, different kinds of common checkmates (Stalemate, Insufficient pieces to checkmate, draws) Explain what types of pieces can be used to checkmate, i.e. 2 knights can’t checkmate but two bishops and one knight one bishop can (complex checkmate with these two) + En-passant

Objective + Pieces (Ultimate goal is to checkmate the opponent king, show a couple examples of checkmate(ask for explanation on each position why it is a checkmate), introduce values of all the other pieces and explain how they can move around the board. (Identify the strengths and weaknesses of bishops + knights)

Terminology: Pins, Skewers, Forks +(Examples to identify them) Introduce what each one of these are, how to avoid them and how to utilize them.

King Safety + Exposed King (Because the king is the most important piece, we have to learn how to protect it. Explain terminology about fianchettoed bishops + introduce pawn structure) Although you may want to push all your pawns forward to “attack” you are exposing your king. (Explain the correct types of pawn structures you want and explain how the pawn is one of the best ways to prevent opposing knights, bishops, rooks, and queen from entering your half of the board)

Checkmate: Mate in 1, Mate in 2, Back Rank Mate, Scholar’s Mate (Introduction to basic checkmates, and popular checkmates you need to avoid happening to yourself) Use lots of examples and solve problems with repetition to realize and understand these types of checkmakes

Introduction to Opening: Basic e4 openings (Ruy Lopez, Bc4, responses vs. Sicillian and e5, French, CaroKann).. Why is the opening so important?? Development of pieces + space discussion, development of pieces, Importance of castling, how to develop certain structures for king, knight positioning

Middlegame + Attacking and Defending: Importance of center, development of pieces, pressuring the opponent king, know how and when to start an attack, how to defend against opponent attacks, and ultimately counterattack against opponent attacks

Endgame: Checkmate with 2 rooks, Checkmate with 2 bishops, Checkmate with two queens, Checkmate with pawns, introduce endgame with only pawns on the board, One pawn + one king (how to draw without and how to win in certain circumstances)

Initiative, Space, Center: Discuss the central squares of the board (e4, d4, d5, e5), how to control them + importance of controlling the center(easier access to more parts of the board + easier to put pressure on the opponent). Initiative

Teachers Profile:

Mr. Gu

Mr.Gu has playing chess for over 10 years. He has over 400 rated wins and has achieved his national master title. He has competed in a multitude of national events and even one worldwide event representing our nation. With the skills he has learned from the various grandmaster and international master coaches he has had in the past, he hopes to introduce new levels of awareness on the board to newer players. By working with him, he will help introduce a variety of openings, break down strategy in the middle game, and how to finish or draw games in the endgame.

Mr. Gupta

Mr.Gupta rated 2000+ and has achived the official USCF Expert Title. He has been playing chess for quite a few years with years of teaching experience! He has lots of material for dedicated students including but not limited to the opening repertoire, a huge collection of books, and software. He has had many students in the past who have seen great growth with him and testimonials to prove so! With him, students will be able to revamp their opening repertoire, focus on middle-game planning, and memorize endgame algorithms, all improving their game for the better!