Newsletter #12

Post date: Feb 14, 2018 2:34:37 AM

Dear Prairie Chess Families,

TUESDAY LESSON

Our first lesson with the Creek and Point student was on the rules of a popular chess variant “Chess 960” also known as Fischer Random Chess. Fischer Random Chess, also called Chess960 was invented by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer. It uses the same board and pieces as standard chess, but the starting position of the pieces on the players' home ranks is randomized. The random setup makes it difficult to play memorized openings and the players have to rely on their talent and creativity. Today, a Fischer Random Chess match between the World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, and America’s top player, Hikaru Nakamura, completed. After go over a couple games from the match, we played a few games together.

Our second lesson with the K-4 students started with logging into our ChessKid.com accounts. I was very pleased that everyone could do it on their own! We then learned how to navigate to our private Prairie Chess Club page on the website. Last week, I posted a lesson that had a video and a puzzle with the theme of “Principle of Force: Counting Attackers and Defenders.”

With this newsletter, I have posted this week’s ChessKid recommended practice materials: Stop the Attack!

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As chess players, we like to attack the opponent’s king. It’s fun to checkmate! Sometimes, the other player attacks when they are not ready. This may happen when:

    • They lack enough pieces to attack.
    • They have not castled.
    • The lack control of the center of the board.

As the defender, we need to stop the attack. When we do this really well, we can become the attacker! Watch these two videos to learn master thinking to stop the attack.

When you are done, prove yourself with these puzzles

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IOWA MATCH PLAY TEAM TOURNAMENT SIGN-UP

Our next tournament is a Team Tournament, February 24, at Prairie Point. Called the Iowa Match Play Team Championship, this event is structured like a tennis match, where teams of 4 players play head to head. I need you to sign up with me on this Google Form to play on one of our Prairie Teams: https://goo.gl/forms/loIKKyC04sDXiieD2.. As teams of 4-players, I will have to assemble and register the team and then ask that you pay me the registration fee ($10). We will have teams in K-12, K-9, K-6, and a K-6 Reserve. So, we need a lot of players!

Take care,

Jim