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With the end of half-term, a very good turnout today with 14 youngsters looking to learn and play some great chess. There were two themes for the day, tactics and checkmate patterns. With various boards set up with tactical puzzles and simple checkmates, the groups actively got involved in chipping in with their ideas. The Importance of Tactics Tactics are in every phase of the game Chess, it doesn’t matter how good your openings are Read more

Castling is a special move in chess where you do multiple unique actions. First of all, it is the only move where you may move two pieces in the same move! Secondly, castling is the only time in chess when it is legal to move the King more than one square! Third, it is the only move that both develops your Rook and protects your King. Castling can be performed on the Kingside (notated as 0-0) or Queenside (notated as 0-0-0). Castling Read more

Only 7 youngsters today, but being bank holiday weekend, for me that was not too bad really, those that came were given a lesson on the joys and surprises of what Pawns can do! Firstly, birthday wishes this week go to Michal for the 28th May, have a great day! So onto the theme of the day:- Foot Soldiers that never retreat! True, pawns cannot go backwards, only forwards or diagonally to capture, on it’s Read more

If you are losing at chess because you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, stop playing chess the way you currently are and start winning more games by first of all, sticking to opening principles. Put one or two of your pawns in the centre and protect them with another pawn and develop your pieces, Knights, Bishops before Queen and Rooks, castle early to get the King safe and the Rook into Read more

It was a bit like being at school with a written exam, but 12 juniors turned up and gave it all they got after explaining these symbols:- A pawn is given no symbol but the pieces have symbols as follows: We also use symbols for special moves: 25 minutes were spent recording a practice game shown on the display board, then, thrown into the deep end, they all played a proper game and recorded all Read more

By recording your moves in a game and playing back through it, you can clearly see what you or your opponent did wrong, this is the best way to improve your game. If you don’t write your moves down, you’ll never know what really what wrong and when. You may be happy just to play game after game, win or lose, zippy-doo-dah, but to get good at chess, which I’m sure you all want, we Read more

10 juniors today, other activities like football finals, cricket and swimming keeping a few away this week, never-the-less, some good games played today. In addition, on Thursday afternoon there were 6 adults and two children playing friendly games of chess in the library with the added bonus of free teas, coffee and asorted snacks, so why don’t you join us to play, learn, or just chat. Theme for the day was a re-visit to the Read more

With Easter holidays well behind us, it was great to see 15 juniors turn up on this Spring Bank Holiday weekend. We also had 6 adults and 4 juniors on Thursday afternoon enjoying a couple of hours of chess in Ferndown Library. Great stuff! We all sang Happy Birthday to Advik who will be seven on Tuesday and was given a birthday card to enjoy from the Ferndown Chess Club. We also welcome new member Read more

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a great Easter and look forward to a lovely new term at school!! who was that at the back booing? A good turn out today with 10 students, we welcome Philip who joins us for the first time, a new beginner to chess, a lot to learn but he has the ability to become a good player. A few puzzles to warm up with then we went into Read more