How To Teach Chess to Anyone!

Parents and their kids can learn together - easy peasy! 

I will never forget the kindness Laura and Dan Sherman showed to me when I was needing some coaching in preparation for my charitable chess match with Shira Evans a few years ago.  Shira still won all of our games, but I was able to put up a fight thanks to Dan's coaching (he spent over an hour with me on the telephone and also reviewed some of my games and gave me practical, helpful pointers a/k/a tactics).  In my book, they are good people.

Laura Sherman and her co-writer, Bill Kirkpatrick, have a new book out:

Chess is Child's Play: Teaching Techniques That Work
ISBN: 978-1936277315
Publisher: Mongoose Press
Date of publish: April 16, 2012
Pages: 304
S.R.P.: $19.95

You can read more about it at Amazon.  There is also a very short animated video:

Shira Chess Challenge: GAME ON!

Hola darlings! The time has counted down, my 3-game chess match with Shira is nearly here! (Photo right: Shira Evans, taken at Ashkelon, Israel, 2009. Photo left: Jan Newton, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July, 2008) My training is nearly at an end - I have one last game going on - with my coach, Chessdaddy a/k/a Kelly Atkins. I made a really STUPID move two moves ago to grab a piece - ACH! I should have known it looked too easy. It wasn't a poisoned pawn - it was a poisoned Bishop. ACH! But I still have hopes of coming out ahead material-wise when the slaughter of exchanging pieces is done because, in the final analysis (NO guarantee my final analysis is correct, mind you), I have a Knightess placed just where she can grab a pawn once the slaughter is done. Since Chessdaddy does NOT read this blog, I feel fairly confident in sharing this interim strategy with you :) Tomorrow (Friday) I'm taking a day off from chess (except for my final training game - wth Chessdaddy). Here are the particulars about the SHIRA CHESS CHALLENGE FOR CHARITY MATCH: DATES: September 5, 6 and 7, 2009 TIME: 10:00 a.m. Central Standard Time (Wisconsin time, USA) PLACE: http://www.chess.com/ HANDLES: Jan Newton of Goddesschess plays as JanXena and Shira Evans of Computerlabs for Kids Foundation plays as shirae. Shira and I will be playing one game each day, starting at 10:00 a.m. CST, over the Labor Day weekend. Each of us will have one hour on our clocks, no increment. Membership at chess.com is free. I honestly have no idea how this works - my guess is that if you are not already a member at chess.com you will have to sign up if you want to watch our games, and then you search under one or the other of our "handles" - JanXena or shirae, to find our games. I hope you will check in and watch some part of one or more of our games! I've been practicing, darlings, training really hard! Well, okay, I haven't won a game yet in my online training games but I DID win that game against Mr. Don when we were coming back from Las Vegas last week :) Cheer on your favorite - the unrated undergoddess or the Chess Goddess with peak USCF rating of 1727 (EEK!) And, if you should be so inclined, please make a contribution to Shira's Foundation and help the kids that she helps. Thanks once again to Laura and Dan Sherman of Your Chess Coach for their help in my training. Wish I could have you sitting as little angels on my shoulders while I'm playing against Shira :)

Shira Chess Challenge: Match and Training Update!

Hola darlings! The time is fast approaching - this weekend, starting on Saturday September 5th and concluding on Monday September 7th, Shira and I will be playing out match - one game each day, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I'll let you know the TIME soon! Shira and I will be playing in real time using clocks - 1 hour each - at chess.com. Shira plays under the name "shirae" and I play under "JanXena". We invite you to kibitz. I don't recall if I posted this link earlier - but if I didn't - here is the link to Shira's "Movie Channel" at You Tube. She's posted a lot of videos there of her 2009 projects with the kids - worth watching! The kids and Shira's work with them is what this is all about. On the training front, some updates. First, Chessdaddy, I done you wrong, darling. I thought he had abandoned me, but it turns out he had not received the email notice that I had made a move in our one and only training game, and he hadn't gone back to redhotpawn.com to check the game status. Our game has since resumed and right now, according to CD, I am ahead in piece development and slightly ahead in material. Second, I have received help from an unexpected source! A little background: Back on July 6th I did a post, sounding in dismay and depression, about how my chess training was going, and I posted an article I'd found about "beginner" chess and a couple who are training mostly young ones (but some older ones too) chess beyond the fundamentals. After all, it isn't that hard to learn how the pieces move. It's what comes afterward that is the brain-slayer for moi! At that point in my training, having hit near despair that I could even play again (paralysis had set in), Shira and I bumped back the match date from the end of July to the end of August, and settled upon Labor Day weekend. Lo and behold. Laura Sherman, one of the dynamic duo who is Your Chess Coach, posted a comment to that dreadful lament and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. After learning more about Shira's Computer Labs for Kids Foundation, Laura and her husband Dan are contributing free time to help me with analysis and zeroing in on my weakest spots. I'm not too hopeless a case after all, darlings! First session is tomorrow night (I scheduled it for AFTER Hell's Kitchen - can't miss Chef Gordon Ramsay yelling and screaming at his contestants, heh!) Dan and Laura Sherman met through chess in Los Angeles in 1992. Both were strong tournament players in their youth and developed a passion for the game. Now that they are parents they feel it is time to start teaching the next generation. To that end they are working on e-courses and books to teach parents and educators how to teach children to play chess. They also teach over 50 student in 6 schools locally, starting as early as age 4. I'm looking forward to my first session with Dan and Laura. We'll be working via telephone and simultaneously online. Thank you, Laura and Dan Sherman, for caring, and for your time. I will try my bestest not to disappoint.