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Eeeeeexactly!
Who is the boy on the left that checkmated you?
Hmm, both White and Black are in check!
When you play your kids, do you lift your foot a little from the pedal, or do you floor it?
My philosophy was “tough love”, no mercy given or asked for.
A lot of tears, sulkiness, refusal to play again, and gentle coaxing to try again.
In the end I think it was worth it, for my son beats me at least half of the time. That does not mean he is master material, but he is at a level where my own (in)competence can take him, and he beats most of the other children at a (fairly small) school.
Opinions?
Regards,
There isn’t so much to be learned from a match that’s not competitive. I followed IM Larry Kaufman’s advice with my son, training him with handicap games.
At the beginning he got two moves for every one of mine (!). After he figured that out, we progressed to odds of queen, two rooks and a knight. Now, I have a hard time holding him at rook odds.
According to Alexy Root it is a very fine line.
If you don’t challenge them enough they will get bored
If you challenge them too much they will quit.
Doesn’t leave much room for perfect teaching but I’m sure good teaching will still result if we don’t go too far in either direction.
Susan,
I have noticed I cannot discern the types of pieces when I photograph a chess board. 5 of the 6 piece types differ in details, but from any distance or lower resolution they all appear to be roughly the same cylindrical shape.
This excessive similarity comes from the “tail wagging the dog”. The Cook-Staunton piece design was driven by the needs of the manufacturer (turnable on a lathe), not by what could have been better/best for chess players and spectators.
Of course there are ways to totally re-design chess pieces to make them more distinctive.
But the obvious objection is “people are used to the Cook-Staunton design, and it would be too hard to use another”.
I wonder how hard it would be?
*** QUESTION ***
In simuls or elsewhere, when you have played with non-Cook-Staunton pieces, have you found it hard to get used to, or just initially annoying?
I ASK BECAUSE the concept of chess on TV would be stronger if the pieces were designed to meet the needs of TV viewers. The Cook-Staunton design is a good example of how NOT to design for TV.
Thanks, Gene Milener
http://CastleLong.com/
Do you “ease up” when playing your children, or do you go at them full-strength?