Expert: Wuyanbu Zutali - 6/15/2007

Question
Sir,
Presently I am running a Chess Centre, please give me tips to develop this centre into a Club.  I also wish to know how chess tutorials should be conducted and I also want to know how to deal with chess students of Primary, Secondary and Adult/matured level players.  How can I make these students achieve atleast a national level status.
Please reply

yours truely,
Dinesh

Answer
Hello Dinesh,

It sounds to me as if you already have a chess club established.
Chess clubs usually meet once a week for whatever time people like and on a set day. I found evenings worked best in my city, but Saturdays may work better in yours. if you'd like to make it a formal chess club you should contact the United States Chess Federation and become an affiliate. (uscf,org)  As an affiliate you would be registered as an official USCF chess club. The benefits would be national exposure and being plugged into the chess community on a global scale.  In time, you can elect officers and go from there. On chess tutorials, there are so many different programs out there to improve chess play that almost any one of them will offer some kind of benefit. For youngsters I recommend "Think Like a King." I've heard nothing but good things about it. You can order more advanced chess software from the USCF sales distributor and by going to nationally rated USCF tournaments.
keep in mind, your state also has a chess organization, join them as well. As your funding gets better, develop a website to help promote your club.
As far as dealing with kids of different levels, trust me, they are all so very different it's incredible. The primary kids will be like bees wanting to learn, but keep it simple for them. I think they should learn the fundamentals of chess and play as often as they can. Mix in a little chess theory by showing them master level games. Middle School kids you can up the study aspects of chess. They are like Primary kids in that they want to play play play chess, but resist learning. However, once they understand the benefits of learning how to play, they can become great learners. For some of them who understand early in life that  they will not be the next Lebron James, they could become experts and masters. High school kids and adults I found to be not much more like middle school kids, but they can grasp more advanced material and become more serious quicker than their younger comrades.
I've found that the best way to get players to national status is to play in USCF tournaments, study three or four times a week, and get a chess coach for your players unless you are the coach. Some may get their own coaches, but coaching will help weed out bad chess. For beginners, anyone can teach the fundamentals. Set a goal to one day bring in a Grandmaster to inspire your players. Have a fundraiser and adverstise it in the newspaper that a world class players is coming to your club. As far as training, no matter what level they are on, I always had chess training in my club each meeting. Use your best players as coaches. Fix your sights on the small local events and then go to the biggest tournaments you can attend. Tournaments are the fun of chess not just to play, but meet fascinating people and players.

I hope this helps.