Chess Club!

This chess club is a more free-flowing and interactive version of my traditional classes. Rather than focusing on doing rigid lesson plans, my goal for the chess club is for students to take a more active role in their chess progress while I help facilitate and administer games, exercises, and discussions. On any given week, we will focus on any combination of one or all of the following areas of development:

1. Live Games - Can't be a chess club without any games. So this will be a main part of these meetings. Unlike my traditional classes (where I play against most of the students), students will be more encouraged to play against one another in order to experience playing against a variety of styles and skills. I will be giving live feedback and guidance for all students throughout their games. While chess is competitive in nature, the goal of these games is to help students learn and improve while they play. Students will need a chess.com account for these games. 

2. Game Analysis - One of the best ways to improve is to analyze your games to see where you are making mistakes and learn from them to avoid making similar mistakes in the future. I will encourage and invite students to share their games during this class and we can analyze them as a group with the help of other students. 

3. Puzzles - Puzzles are a great way to help sharpen tactics and overall visualization of the board by taking into consideration not only your moves but, perhaps more importantly, those of your opponent's.

4. Chess Discussion - I've found that many of my students (not unlike me) love to talk about chess in addition to just playing. Since we don't always have time to go deeper into these conversations, I thought this class would be a great place to devote some time to just talking about chess. So whether it's about chess history, the psychology of chess, chess etiquette, or current events in the world of chess, we can share our ideas and experiences about some of these topics. 

Please note that we will not be using any physical chess boards in this class. All games and exercises will be done online through the chess.com website, so there are some technical aspects to the class, including creating a chess.com account that will require preparation from your end.