No Stress Chess

The way the pieces move isn't that hard to learn. The seven year old and the five year old both got it pretty quickly. The problem is one of strategy and tactics. While they both really wanted to play they didn't know exactly why they were moving the pieces and what is was, exactly, they needed to accomplish. Enter this game. Because the cards dictate which piece has to be moved the young player is a bit on auto-pilot. They don't have to look at the board and 16 pieces and decide which one should go somewhere next. The card they draw tells them which piece to move. One guy was very aggressive, opening up on attack. The other was very defensive, making small and closed up moves. They began to see the larger picture, and after a few games they started to develop their own styles and really began to see how you attack and defend the king. It was actually pretty cool to see them "get" the point and flow of the game. We had great fun and made huge strides. I was delighted. Both boys desperately wanted to play chess and I figured this game would do no harm and was no more expensive than a plain plastic set. I did not expect this to be so successful, both as a fun game and as a learning tool. One suggestion. Early on a player may get a card for a piece that can't be moved. (Usually, a rook.) The "rules" dictate that the player must then skip his turn. This made no sense to me because losing a turn is a real disadvantage. We play that if you select a card for an unmovable player you select another card until you can move. That worked much better, and maintained the balance between the players. Anyway, the upshot is that this really worked well for us and I enthusiastically recommend this as a solid introduction for youngsters curious about chess. UPDATE. As of late summer the boys are now playing, quite well, without using the cards at all. This really just worked well beyond my expectations.

1. Sehr speditive Lieferung über Landesgrenzen hinweg, danke! 2. Das Spiel war ein Geschenk für unsere 7-jährige Tochter. Sie liebt es und hat dank dessen innerhalb eines Tages die Züge der Figuren gelernt. Ich auch :-) Für uns also eine sehr hilfreiche Art, Schach zu erlernen. Daher 5 Sterne von uns!

When my son came home asking for chess lessons from me, I was hesitant because of his age. But I found this game and it has worked wonders. I don't mean to say that he became an expert in days and he can play chess well. But it explains the rules of the game and some basic strategies can slowly be introduced with each game. It reduces the stress while playing chess, especially for beginners.

Don’t buy this, it will make you learn and love chess. I don’t know about children, but it helped me learn chess. My husband has always loved chess but I was intimidated by the rules and different pieces. When you play the card version you start to hope for certain pieces to come up in the deck and develop a strategy in your mind, this makes you want to stop playing with the cards and start playing normally as you develop a better understanding of potential moves. The booklet also gives you a basic understanding of chess strategy. After teaching myself, I thought one of my friends in an afternoon and she taught her boyfriend, and now we all play. I’m confident children could learn easily too, I was kidding earlier definitely get this. On one side of the board is labeled with suggested moves to meet the card game works better, the other side is plain. The pieces are a light plastic, nothing special, but it’s just a training set anyways. If you learn to like chess you can invest in a much nicer board, and if not, you got your value for your money. My only tiny complaint is that some of the colours on the cards are close together and easily confused at a glance in dim lighting (but you can also just read and see the picture). Great set!

Makes a great introduction to chess with the labels on the board. Also cards to help identifying how each piece type should move. It’s a great tool for young beginners!