Chess Coaching Links

Links for people interested in teaching and learning about chess

Some non-coaching links are found on the front door.

[N.B.

I'm struggling to keep up just these coaching links: other people seek to be inclusive, but below the links are just about coaching or learning.
Do you have a site I should know about? I'm not really interested in giving free advertising for exclusively commercial sites. Please don't e-mail me with requests to be added to this list unless you have at least some free instructional material
...Instead tell Yahoo or Chessopolis about your site

]

Did you know you can play live chess for free on the internet?

Self-help groups
Other instructional chess pages
- Basics
- Junior and School Chess
- General Chess Instruction
- Coaches
Links to look for coaching links:
The big sites and indices...
Other and Non-Internet contacts (shome mistake surely? - Ed.)

Self-help groups
Chessplayers Unanimous!
- Chess Analysis, James Baldwin hosts a mutually supportive commentary forum.
Other instructional chess pages (in no particular order):
- Square one
  1. The Official FIDE Laws of Chess
  2. You can also learn to play at the Chess Corner which has some nice teaching material organised around the British Chess Federation Certificate of Merit scheme.
  3. There is good advice in the rec.games.chess newsgroup's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list with answers. You can access the rec.games.chess.misc newsgroup itself, a magpie's nest of Goodies from r.g.c.* and an immodest preserve of my old posts.
  4. Joe Brooks has composed and made available texts explaining en passant rule, beginners' guidelines, systems of notation and US ratings.
  5. US Correspondence Champion Jon Edwards claims Chess is fun! The moves and more, in Netscape Frames.
  6. How to get to 1900 is a set of online articles by John Coffey.
  7. Karel van Delft has some excellent articles on studying chess - essential!
- Junior and School chess
  1. Duif's place has a host of relevant material, including Tips For Parents of Young Chessplayers and an International Directory of Chess Teachers.
  2. UK readers will not need reminding about the success of Richmond Juniors, but they will no doubt be pleased to see the website from their esteemed coach Richard James www.chesskids.com
  3. There is a Scholastic Chess mailing list; e-mail scholastic-chess-request@cis.uab.edu to join.
  4. Chess'n Math Homepage: - a Canadian initiative incorporating school chess into maths (or vice versa!).
  5. Chess in Schools: a Brazilian Project - not just Chess and Maths, but Chess and Geography, History...!
  6. Peter Walker's Essex Junior Chess News has some Tactical Puzzles and notes on games.
  7. Kids' Chess Network - New York City. There is some very nice material developing on the openings here, both at introductory and advanced levels. Check out the material on The Italian Game and other Double King Pawn Openings.
  8. Food for Thought Software have lots of ideas about how to organise a school chess club, and sell a software series designed to run a complete school chess program.
  9. And last, but by no means least, Steve Martinson has kindly sent some notes from his own work with school children, which I am pleased to offer through a separate Menu Page.
- General Instructional Links
  1. Kevin O'Connell has an archive of columns, some coaching advice and promises some interesting perspectives from his study of sports science: check it out!
  2. Lonnie Lee has provided the THE 64 COMMANDMENTS OF CHESS.
  3. Ooi N-de and Aaron Ong have constructed ChessSite as a project organised by ThinkQuest.
  4. Here's another interesting one: chess used as a topic area for teaching undergraduates. Pomona College ran a term's class on The Nature of Chess Players, and made the conduct and progress of the class open to the Internet. The Final Projects include essays on scholastic chess, Freudian Theory and chess and Art, Mathematics and Chess.
  5. Lytham Ex Chess Club have some information for club-players on the Scotch Gambit [and some openings even worse than the Grob].
  6. Brigend Chess Club have a Coaching section, from John Watts.
  7. Midwest Chess Academy has no free lessons but a cute refreshable chess quote server.
  8. The Chess Scene, a new amateur e-zine devoted to the amateur game. It promises to be entertaining and accessible, and will be better with your support.
    We often use Club games from Exeter players in coaching. For other amateur games, many players maintain a 'vanity' Web page with a game or two (like this one!), and Rudolf Steinkellner (below) has a collection of CC games.
    See also the Difference handout which has a booklist.
  9. There is some good information and exercises at Hellas Chess Club, but I have always found it slow to load. Best of luck!
  10. The USCF have a Beginners' Section, and a free syndicated weekly column (*), and offer a set of 'Chapter One' book advertisements, two of which are very relevant:
    - Kotov's classic Think Like a GM, the first chapter of which has been very influential; and
    - How To Get Better at Chess : Chess Masters on Their Art: lighter fare but most interesting.
    There are other goodies there too, like Learn Chess with Gary Kasparov(!)
    (*) Other newspaper columns are occasionally updated at the Chess Connection, and there is a list of online journals at Chess Space, many of which have sites with sample articles. Latest of these is Tim Harding's Chess Mail for CC chess; Tim also has an on-line column The Kibitzer at the Chess Cafe, along with a number of other fine writers. I have some information about KingPin magazine; young players will welcome the USCF School Mates magazine.
  11. Norbert Friedrich has all sorts of goodies, including some instruction on endings.
  12. Eduardo Suastegui by all accounts has a nice (growing!) endgame selection (needs JAVA, so I can't actually see what he's got).
  13. Bernd Rosen presents Schachtraining Online, mostly in German but with some English material and a nice set of Links
  14. Barnet Chess Club has an excellent and growing collection of "technical papers" on various topics in the opening and middlegame, and more basic material on improving your play.
  15. Last time I looked the recent FICS events included some helpful lectures.
  16. Steve Lopez (now there's a surname) of ChessBase USA has started writing Battle Royale about the New York tournament of 1924, which includes pen-portraits of the players and a chess glossary . The material is two parts: the games annotated from the point of view of their instructional value, and an imaginary account of what Steve would have seen and heard as a visitor to the tournament. The latter might not be to your taste, but the basic lessons from the games are put across with admirable vigour, (literally every move being annotated) and a summary of principles is given for each game. Good effort!
- Coaches
  1. Euwe Chess Academy has instruction, examples and annotated amateur games - nice!
  2. IM Javier Gil has free files (annotated amateur games) and free on-line tests.
  3. Most people know that Kasparov has some chess instructional material at Kasparov Chess, but it's just the sort of thing I hate, if you're going to install some software and download 8 Megabytes of content I'd want more than 8 minutes worth of study material! [Chacun a son gout.]
  4. SmartChess chess tutorial is now available: if they get this right, I can give up...
  5. Sample lectures from GM Gabriel Schwartzman (you can force him to give you more by pressing money into his hand)
  6. Planet Chess not only has waycool graphics but a Chess 101 instructional section, Endgame lessons, and other goodies.
  7. GM Nigel Davies. Coaching services with an archive of essays offering practical advice.
  8. The London Chess Centre has published a whole bunch of introductory stuff on Openings, but you have to pay for any meat. [A Lynx-hostile site]
  9. There is a heap of good stuff at CHESSPLAYER (IM Orlov) Instruction
  10. Master Preparation: Lectures, a Non-Credit Continuing Education Course in Chess by International Grandmaster Ilya Smirin: course materials
  11. Analysed games from Danny Mozes (one of the strongest players to use a computer to choose his moves on IC$ and FICS), and company.
  12. Ignacio Marin offers opinions and advice on a variety of chess topics. Worth a look, if only to find out about "Becoming a chess master!". [Needs a little salt seasoning. Ignacio has a lively style, but "The opposite of a great truth is also true." (Bohr)]
  13. Chess Web University offers courses for sale and has an example of its material on a Preview page; see also the ChessWise University.
  14. Manus Fealy bids you Welcome to the Chess for Success Tutorial, where he has several pages of free notes on on topics from basic tactics to deep strategy.
  15. Chess Coaching Tips from Bill Jordan on each phase of the game, and advice on strategy and tactics. Bill also offers coaching over the 'net. Scott Taylor offers a free sample analysis; you can find an online directory of chess coaches at Duif's place.
  16. There is some more splendidly opinionated stuff at Paul Powell's Chess Page. For a free sample chess lesson send email to memnoch@voicenet.com.
Links to look for coaching links:
1. Chess: Education index of Chess Space - recommended!
2. Search the web's chess resources for links about "Education" (praise and thanks to Steffen Jakob for making the search possible!)
...or browsing at any of the big sites or indices couldn't hurt...
1. Sites: Internet Chess Library or its ICL European mirror site, Traveller Chess Archives, University of Pittsburgh Chess Club (which has an Education section), or its European mirror for ChessBase games.
  There is also the wonderful
2. THE WEEK IN CHESS from Mark Crowther, and sundry local sites like the Dallas Chess Homepage
3. Palamede is a group of independent European chess sites, including coaching, desk-top publishing, graphics, news and games.
4. Indices: You have got to check out Chess Space, rated one of the top 5% of Web sites: it has indices of links for openings and endings. Sean Whalen's site at The Mining Company had helpful descriptions of each site. Other starting points include Yahoo! - Chess Index & search [Instructional, Indices], Chesslinks Worldwide, Maclin Chess [links and news], GNN's Chess Index and Rudolf Steinkellner's Chess Page (which has a whole bunch of amateur CC games).
5. A recent and welcome development is Maskeret's MECCA Chess encyclopedia, where you can play Chess Roulette to get a random Chess Web site!
Other and Non-Internet contacts
1. Addresses of UK Chess organisations: try the BCF or Barnet Chess Club to find a UK club near you.
2. Many publishers and suppliers are getting onto the Web, in the British Isles this includes Batsford, Cadogan, London Chess Centre [Chess Monthly] (N.B. the web site is "chesscenter", the e-mail is "chesscentre), KingPin magazine, Chess Mail...
3. UK Chess suppliers ( postal addresses ) Commercial suppliers on the web [like ChessBase, Yasser Seirawan's Inside Chess and s1 editrice] can be found at Chess Space, and at the CHESS CONNECTION. They may have samples to download and/or a collection of links. One particularly for young players is to be found at Chess For Students, Inc..
4. Nearly chess: This page is only about chess, but I do have a soft spot for and other Chess Variants like Semi-Random Baseline Chess, Losing Chess, Exchange Chess (="Bughouse" in the US, although they do play mating drops), and I also enjoy Retrograde analysis and Studies and problems. And don't get me started on Bridge...

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This document (links.html) was last modified on 27 Dec 2005 by [cool blue cat]

Simon on behalf of Dave Regis.