When groups of talented children and adolescents work together, they learn more than just chess. Our camp last week included several players with substantial tournament experience, and we were pleased that many new friendships were formed at the same time that chess skills were honed.
The camp included many kids with advanced skills, while others were more in the intermediate range. The advanced students discussed games that were played by masters, saw that masters make mistakes, too, and learned how people win chess games by taking advantage of those mistakes.
The lessons made clever students work together to figure things out. Rarely was the first thought of any kid correct, but other kids were present to help the group arrive at better answers. By working together, students practiced social skills that will be at least as important as the chess skills they improved.
The camp covered a wide variety of principles of various levels of complexity. Students learned how to spot checkmate patterns, and when checkmates were not available to “settle” for winning material. They also saw the risks of grabbing pawns without considering the consequences. We hope students learned that there is value in delaying gratification.
Several of the top players from last week will be with us again this week, so we can make further progress. As these kids take the lessons from the camp into tournaments, we expect to see excellent results.
