Programs

Our programs are designed to help you improve your chess for those aspiring chess players desiring to take their game to the next level. For chess beginners, we run an 8-week long training program featuring a rich curriculum that will get you ready for competitive tournament chess after graduating from the program. See below for detailed curriculum for the Level 1 Beginner training we offer at the club.

For other players, we run regular tournaments, provide informal training lessons and coaching to enable our players improve their games. As required, we recommend additional training and coaching offered by other organizations. See our Club Schedule for details on our planned club activities.

Level 1 Beginner Lesson Curriculum

  • Week 1: Introduction of what chess is all about – focus on understanding and visualizing the chess board, the files, ranks and diagonals. Exercises are introduced to help students label the squares and learn the colors of the squares without looking at the board. This is foundational as visualization of the chess board is a key component of mastering chess.
  • Week 2: Introduction of the Chess Pieces – building on the foundation of Week 1, the pieces are introduced and students learn the position of the pieces on the board with a focus on mastering the colors the various pieces sit on. Exercises are introduced for students to name squares, colors, pieces on squares, etc. More focus on visualizing the chess board with the pieces is emphasized.
  • Week 3: Movement of the Pieces – Rook and Bishop. Here, the students explore the potentials of the rooks and bishops with lots of exercises aimed at visualizing the chess board with these pieces and determining where the pieces are the most powerful when placed on various squares. Visualization exercises in the prior weeks are built on in Week 3 with the Rooks and Bishops on the board. Kids also start to practice playing mini chess games from Week 3.
  • Week 4: Movement of the Pieces – The King and Queen. This is similar to Week 3 with the introduction of the King and Queen. The students will continue to work on visualization attempting to solve problems sometimes without looking at the board. At this stage, mini games will continue and we begin to introduce basic opening strategies and tactics.
  • Week 5: Movement of the Pieces – Knight. Similar pattern to the lesson plan in Week 4 with the introduction of the Knight. The students will continue to work on visualization with lots of exercises exploring the movement of the Knight most times without looking at the board. Lessons will be reinforced with practice games and some additional focus on strategies and tactics for both opening and middle game.
  • Week 6: Movement of the Pieces – Pawn. Here we introduce the pawn but also start focusing on the various pawn structures and the impact it can have on the chess game. We explore the power of the pawns and discuss the different types of pawns – passed pawn, isolated pawn, double pawns, etc. We continue to build on the visualization with many exercises. More practice games are played to foster learning points.
  • Week 7: Special moves – Pawn. In Week 7, we introduce the special pawn move – en passant. We continue to expand on the lessons in Week 6 with additional exercises focused on visualization. More practice games are played with basic concepts on the end game introduced.
  • Week 8: Special moves – Castle. We introduce castling and spend some time teaching about king safety. Lessons in prior weeks are reinforced with additional exercises. More games are played and more strategy and tactics are explored with the kids.