I remember learning chess at a very young age, in primary school probably. I don't remember well, but I think my father taught me how to move the pieces and how to place them, but then I learned by watching and playing with kids around the block. My father, unfortunately, is a poor chess player, but at least he taught me the basics and he or my mother bought me a small chess board with magnetic pieces, which I used heavily to play with my friends.
I remember playing on that board all the way to high school, occasionally, with a few of my classmates. One of them in particular was about my level, and matches with him were always interesting. After that, I lost track of it, don't know what happened with that board. I have had others, obviously, since then.
I also learned a lot playing single games on a Spectrum computer when I was in secondary school. I loved that game! It not only had different levels for the computer opponent but also had voice generation (which was pretty advanced stuff for Spectrums), and the computer opponent had reactions on my moves such as "Wow!" or "Good move!" or "Bad move!" or "Mate in 4!" that gave me an indication of how well I played against it.
Anyway, for the general population who knows at least a little bit of chess, I am probably a good or very good player. For players who love the game, I am average or maybe slightly above. Never played it at a competitive level in tournaments of something similar, other than online for ranking (my best was around 2000, but was usually lower). And I don't like speed chess.
Ok... enough about me and chess.
My nieces learned the basics of chess with their grandpa. The other grandpa, not my father.
For a few weeks, when they come over, I try to make some time to play a bit with them to see if they can step up a bit, if they like the game or do it just to play something with me.
My older niece is very impatient and continuously tries to change the rules of the game or put me at a disadvantage to beat me. It's not bad that she tries to control the rules rather than play by them, but she'll probably get a lot of hardship from society, where breaking the rules and creating your own is always a bad thing. And yet, all the wealthy do it.
However, she and chess might not get along very well.
The younger one is more patient and accepts advice (unlike the older one), but I'm still not clear if she likes chess, if she wants to play something with me or she found another thing she doesn't excel at yet. I think I will ask her directly someday.
Unlike her sister, I can give her advice during a match or alternative moves. Sometimes I ask her to think about a different move, other times I suggest it to her, and occasionally I ask her why she moved the way she did. When I first started playing with her, she thought the best idea was to heavily defend the king. After all, the end game is checkmate. If you can't reach the king, you can't mate it. In theory, it works, but in practice, it doesn't, if you let the opponent do whatever they want on the board.
Even now, she still plays excessively cautiously, but I think she started to see the board better. She even surprised me with a few moves, but she still thinks most often one move at a time, except when there are obvious pieces to exchange.
I am wondering what is better: to let her play at her level and allow her to make some silly mistakes, or correct her and offer her alternatives. My thinking is that if I don't let her fall into traps she will learn better and won't get discouraged, that's why I use this strategy.
Chess is an important game to learn as a child. And Go. Chess is confrontational, Go is not: wins who controls the most territory. If we think in geopolitical terms, Chess is how the West operates (even though it was invented in India, but was exported to the West through Persia), while Go is how China operates (Go was invented in China). In the pursuit of world domination, they think and play in different games.
