Expert: Wuyanbu Zutali - 4/30/2008

Question
QUESTION: Dear sir,

I am a President of my school Chess Club. I face a dilemma on how to help my players train. I also have difficulty improving my own skill. I hope you can help to advise a good training method for me and I would greatly appreciate whatever help you can provide.

Many thanks in advance,

Janice

ANSWER: Hello Janice,

This is a very involved question and hits home.
When I started my chess clubs these were the issues facing me.
Depending on how serious your students are, practice can be once a week or five days a week. In my hey day, I trained my students two and three times a week. The month before a big tournament it would be as often as possible. I'd split up practice by teaching theory the first half and letting them play the second half.

As far as your personal play, you have to study chess as much as you can. If you are a USCF member, I suggest you play in a tournament at least once a month. Even if you lose you can learn from your mistakes.
You can also watch strong players play and learn from them. I still do this when I go to tournaments. I stand away from the players 2200 level up or strong experts/players and try to guess their next moves/plan.

There are many things that a chess coach faces over the course of one year. It's beyond the scope of this site to try to cover them all. But, I offer an online chess course where I teach coaches. I have a coach who was an absolute beginner last year. In her first season she went from Novice to an excellent coach. This year she has her kids at the Elementary Nationals in Pittsburgh.

If you are interested contact me at zchess1@yahoo.com

I hope this helps.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi,

Thanks for the very swift reply.

I do not believe my chess experience/skill or that of any of the players present are sufficiently qualified to coach. Generally, everyone here is a novice.

I am wondering if you have any good advices on how to conduct a training programme where everyone can improve together. Even as a novice, do I still conduct theory lessons before I allow my players to play? Or is there another method of training where we all can improve together?

Please advise.

Thanks.

Answer
Hello again,

Being a Novice is not a bad thing. I was once a Novice.

The coach I wrote about was a Novice.
Let's just focus on you. Do you know what the pieces are?
Do you know how they move? If so, you are well ahead of the game.
Many coaches I taught were teachers who did not know how to play chess.
If you can't play at all it's not the end of the world.
You can do two things: Find someone willing to come in and give you hand. Go to your local chess club and ask the president to recommend a player over 1200 USCF rating to volunteer. Once you find that person do a background check to make sure he's not a felon. Or ask around at church or wherever for someone who knows more about chess than you do.

The second part is to teach yourself. Get a basic chess book. Learn chess notation which is simple. (E-4 E-5 etc) Learn the fundamentals and stress them. Once you've learned them go over one game at practice from a chess book. Start with E-4 games. Keep it simple. It's OK to say "I don't know"  if your discussing a game and they as a tough question.

Just go through the game to show the players how to control the center, develop and castle. Once they can do that you've got a foundation. Get them on a book reading program. Start off with Bobby Fisher Teaches Chess.
Some coaches teach basic end game mates first and the opening last.
For some coaches teaching the pawn game is great for Novices. Some coaches hate the pawn game. Some coaches teach Scholars Mate (The four move checkmate) only to show their players how to to stop it. I don't recommend using it as a real weapon. But,they should learn it and how to stop it. Later in a month or so, they can learn openings such as the Ruy Lopez, French Defense etc...
All your players should join the USCF and get the monthly magazine.
They should play in their first unrated tournament to get their feet wet. They will learn a ton of stuff at a tournament.

This is good for now. As your players develop more is required.

I hope this helps.