[PAST EVENT] Chess Lesson and Free Play

Today we covered practical end game theory and reviewed how to checkmate with a king and a rook, king and queen and king and 2 rooks.

Kids enjoyed the rook roller where you roll both rooks, being careful to not hang your rook and corner the opponent’s king. We followed every example with having the participants play against each other with those pieces and see how long it takes to checkmate. We used a clock with 3 minutes and 2 second increments to give ample time to checkmate with those pieces.

Practicing end games is an important aspect of chess as most of the times you will end up with a major piece (rook, queen) and it is good to know how to checkmate your opponent with those pieces. The fifty-move rule in chess states that a player can claim a draw if no capture has been made and no pawn has been moved in the last fifty moves. So you might have a rook and a king vs a king and you might draw the game if the fifty-move rule applies. Hence, know your end games well.

We then had free play with clocks and it was exciting and fun to watch forks and checkmates happen on the board.