How can I improve chess club?

Question

I am the president of chess club at my school. We have about 30 members and we compete against other schools. However, every single chess club meeting is merely just playing against other students. I don't think the members are getting better fast enough. What are some ways I can help others and myself get better at chess during lunch meetings? What are some chess websites that might help? With competitions against other schools stopping in February, what activities can the club do? I am open to any suggestions to make chess club better.

Answer 1

Learn chess notation : It's not difficult. See the link to the right of this page under 'Suggested Reading'.
Solve tactical puzzles : Get a book of tactical puzzles for offline practice and work on them when you have a few spare minutes. Try to solve them from the diagrams.
Develop an opening repertoire : It doesn't matter how creative you may be in the middle game or endgame if you lose most of your games in the opening.
Learn positional principles : If your tactics are bad, you'll lose quickly. If your strategies are bad, you'll lose slowly. In either case you'll lose, but you'll suffer longer if you lose strategically. Positional play and strategic thinking are first cousins.
Study endgames : If you like to study (not everyone does), tackle a good book on the endgames. An hour spent on the endgame is worth more than an hour spent on the openings.
Play! : No surprise here. Play as much as you can, including face-to-face and online. Try to find a few opponents who are significantly better than you are. You'll probably lose to them, but you'll learn.
Record the moves of your games : Analyze your losses and try to determine why you lost. If you play online, your moves are recorded automatically and you can retrieve the game score afterwards.
Play some games at a slower pace, like using email : Correspondence chess gives you the time to research the opening in depth and to study each position in a way that is impossible during a fast game. You can play chess by email at very little extra cost beyond what you pay now for your Internet connection.
Teach someone else to play : There's nothing like someone asking simple questions to expose your own weaknesses.
Hire your own teacher, if you can afford it : A good teacher is worth the money. Great players aren't necessarily good teachers, but great teachers are generally good players.
Tips:
Balance all of these techniques. Don't be surprised if you progress in one area but seem to regress in another.
Analyze an occasional game with your favorite opponent. It will help you determine how much you are seeing during the game.
Play against your computer. Don't be too discouraged if you lose consistently. Computers have different strengths and weaknesses than human players do.

Answer 2

The book:

1001 Chess Tactics and Combinations by Fred Reinfeld.

Do a page a day. There are six problems on a page. This exercise should take you well through next year. By doing these problems consistently you get better. You can scan the pages into an image file and email them to your club if thats what you want. If you can do the problems in your head on the school bus its better than using the board. Visualization is one of the biggest leaps from basic to stronger players.

I dont know the strength of your group otherwise I could give better suggestions. If you have access to the ICC (internet chess club) check out some grandmaster games. Many follow a pattern and you can watch them on the internet and ask people questions.

My first set of books was the Winning Chess Series by Yasser Seirwan.

They are pretty good.

Answer 3

I will give you several suggestions. You can have practice more then once a week, so that way people can practice their chess. You can also ask people to write down their moves in notation, so that way you can help them analyze what they did wrong, so they won't make the same mistake again. Have everyone keep a record of how many win/loss record and who they play against, so that way you can set up for a tournament each week. As for tournaments I'm going to assume you have 8 boards. Pick only the best 8 people play on the boards. Put your best people on boards (1-3) Then divide the rest of the boards though skills level. The not attempted to put the worst people on boards the first few boards and then the best people on the other boards by skill level. This tacticed is called stacking because is an unfair tacticed and if your caught doing this, you will be disqualified. When I was in a tournament, a team got disqualified for this, so I know first hand. Their not to many sites or books that tell you what you already don't know, it comes with experience.

Answer 4

I disagree with most of the answers. The best way to improve quickly as a team is to get a good chess teacher. There is so much to learn in chess and many individuals repeat their mistakes no matter how much they practice. Find a local chess teacher.

Also, Chessmaster 9000 has many excellent teaching modes.

Answer 5

Start a library. Chess books are @ 1$ in second hand stores.

Get at least a couple of chess clocks. Train yourselves in diverse forms of the game: fast matches, simultaneous, blind, etc.

Star a little magazine, could be a couple of sheets, with a chess problem, some history, a couple of interesting games by famous masters, etc.

Answer 6

Cross training, that means using a different sport to help develop specific skills in your particular sport.

Learn and play other games like Go, Risk, Stratego, and Armis. In this way you broaden how you see offensive and defensive strategies and tactics.

Playing blind, and playing in reverse also gives your mind more appreciation of the game from a different perspective.

Video commentary, this is fun and enables you to get yet another chess driven skill.

Answer 7

practice with some friends learn some techniques from them teach them to your pupils or just buy a book about chess or just buy the cd's like chessmaster 9000

Answer 8

1)By practising many times with friends/family.
2)Learn some tecnics from good players.
3)Asks players how to play.

Answer 9

two words: naked chess