Re: Lack of chess sets is not the problem
Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 8:43 pm
thats right, everything bad at the 4ncl is sambuca sharks.
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They are actually called 'Supremo' and 'Suprema' at the Megafinal, and 'Ultimo' and 'Ultima' a the Gigafinal.Richard Bates wrote:I don't see how anyone who scores 0/6 can be considered "champion" of anything. It's one thing to have specific prizes to challenge underparticipation among girls. Another to make the whole thing a complete farce.
More list 99 references? Why is list 99 at all relevant in this context?Ben Purton wrote:but everyone on list 99 is in the other teams * points fingers around room everywhere*
Hi Alex, I can understand your feelings in this matter. I too would be a bit p*ssed off knowing that someone else was going through to the next round without a single positive score when I had played hard to score half or more of the total points available.Alex Holowczak wrote:There are a few problems with it, though. I don't like how girls and boys are split up. For instance, one girl entered as an U18, and qualified from school with 0/7, qualified from the Megafinal with 1.5/6 (but 0 would have done), qualified from the Gigafinal with 0.5/6 (a bye), and finished last in the Terafinal. Yet she won £130, essentially for just turning up. Conversely, I got 5/7, 4/5/6 and 3/6 and went out. A little unfair, in my opinion. The boys are disadvantaged! But that's not really an issue, in the end she became interested, and she's gone from an 1100 rated player to 1500 (roughly) in the year since (she entered on the proviso that I taught her so she didn't embarrass herself...).
This is an old thread but I'd like to respond. Coaching is not essential if the youngsters just want to have a good time moving the pieces around and engage in some friendly games. Their game won't go anywhere fast -- but for that coaching is essential. A coach can explain tactical ideas, basic endgames, opening ideas, and basic positional ideas that might otherwise take youngsters years to learn (if they ever do). I wish I'd had a coach when I was young -- instead of ineffectually groping in the dark. In addition, a coach can sit with a player to do the all-important post-mortem analysis of a serious game. A coach can give shape and direction to the chess efforts of youngsters.Mike Gunn wrote:I don't think coaching is necessarily the key. OK, this is just my experience (in a grammar school in the 1960s) but we had no coaching. One master was responsible for chess and was present at the school club one night a week and must have arranged fixtures with other schools but everything else was down to us pupils, including team selection, and we made our own way to away fixtures by bike or public transport. In my last year at the school I organized and ran the internal chess competition (inter house) and I produced training materials for beginners. Most lunchtimes we would play chess against each other and/or analyse a game from a newspaper or magazine. One of us (not me) owned a copy of MCO and we would discuss openings before school matches. The key to all this activity was the chess cupboard which contained sufficient sets and clocks to make all this possible. Many more resources are available today using computers and the internet. Coaching is good - but not essential!
Yes, it chimes with my own experience. School bureaucrats deal with such proposals as just another unnecessary headache and one where they gain nothing -- so why bother? Independent schools are more open to such ideas.Tony Robson wrote: I agree, Brent, from our modest experience we feel too that lack of chess sets is often not the problem. Our problem is perhaps slightly different, but frustrating none-the-less.
1. I and two colleagues have taught chess to children from 4 to 18 since 2007.
2. We can provide chess sets and teaching materials at no cost.
3. We do not charge for our time or other expenses.
4. We have enhanced CRB clearance.
5. We are not members of the teaching profession.
6. Less than 15% of the 60 schools in our immediate area "do chess".
We have approached about 25 of these schools and they are simply not interested in receiving any outside help. As far as we can judge, they appear reluctant to deal with people not within the schools system.
Have any others found this in their areas of the country? Why do you think this is? How can we overcome this?
If you would like me to clarify anything regarding our experience, please just ask.
Most secondary schools like to have an internal champion for any venture (on the teaching or non-teaching staff). I don't think the school I teach at would be keen on outside people running a bridge club, unless a member of staff would also be involved. Primary schools are more open to such outside involvement.Arshad Ali wrote: School bureaucrats deal with such proposals as just another unnecessary headache and one where they gain nothing -- so why bother? Independent schools are more open to such ideas.
It depends what you mean by 'anywhere'. I think to become a GM you will need coaching, but very few are of that ability.Arshad Ali wrote: Coaching is not essential if the youngsters just want to have a good time moving the pieces around and engage in some friendly games. Their game won't go anywhere fast -- but for that coaching is essential.
For sure there have to be chess sets. I'm not saying no progress can be made without coaching -- just that progress without it tends to be fumbling, inefficient, and groping in the dark. It's like taking some bright 16-year-olds and telling them they have to prepare for their math A levels by themselves. Some might even get halfway decent grades but all would have profited from an experienced teacher who explained the key concepts carefully, pointed out what was important and what was trivial, and drilled them mercilessly in the kind of exam questions likely to appear, aiming for both speed and accuracy. In chess, the kind of player who was 170 by the age of 18 might have been 210 with directed coaching. The player who was 130 might have been 165. Speaking for myself, I wish I'd had expert help. If with nothing else, just a guide to the literature and pointing out what the lacuna in my own background were. As it is, the diagnosis of the gaps in my background has been done slowly by myself over the years and it's taken time to learn how to learn and how to use the literature. In his book, "Searching for Bobby Fischer," Fred Waitzkin points out the differences between the USA and Soviet Union. In the former, many players remain experts for a long time before eventually becoming weak masters (I know several such Americans myself). In the USSR, such players, with directed training, used to become grandmasters. Dvoretsky used to specialise (maybe still does?) in taking 2200 and 2300 players and transforming them into 2600 players in a couple of years. Admittedly this is for players with genuine talent and aiming for the heights. But in my exceedingly humble opinion, players at all levels of aptitude greatly benefit from directed help. This is not even a counterintuitive proposition -- just plain common sense.Mike Gunn wrote:Arshad, I'm not saying professional coaching isn't good, but you're wrong in saying that no useful progress can be made without it.... The key to all this activity was actually the availability of chess sets!