Coaching: Constructing a Lesson

I had been coaching youth chess for a couple of years when I decided to keep a clear record of what I did each week with the students at the elementary school where my youngest was no longer a student. While he was enrolled there, I was a parent volunteer helping with the after school chess club. When he moved on to another school, I returned to his old elementary as a paid chess coach. The year was 2004. Chess club started in late September.

I began the year with a position from a game I had played a day or two earlier on the Chessmaster Live server. Although Black had a one pawn advantage in a king and pawn endgame, it should be drawn with correct play.

White to move

My opponent erred with 46.Kc5?? We both promoted pawns, but then my opponent blundered theirs away. Had we continued in a queen ending, White might have held out long enough to run me short of time. Black was technically winning with QPP vs. QP and Black's king closer to the pawns.

Instead, play might have continued:

46.Ke4 Kf7 47.Ke5 Ke7 48.Kd4 Kd6 49.Ke4

Black to move

Here Black can err with the same flawed idea that White pursued in the game: 49...Kc5?? Correct play would be either 49...Kd7 or 49...Ke7 and a technical draw.

In the lesson, I sought to introduce to the students the concept of opposition in pawn endings. I followed this position from a recent game with a number of other positions, mostly composed, that had fewer pawns and presumably simpler continuations.

The school chess club ends the year with the Washington State Elementary Chess Championship in April. The last session before state, I showed the students a pawn ending that had been played at the Spokane Chess Club the week prior.

Black to move

After the game ended as a draw, I spent some time with others at the club, including the one who had Black, arguing about whether Black had a win. The next day, I checked some of our ideas on my computer. If we had the same argument today, someone would pull up Stockfish on their phone or a tablebase site and end the debate. My phone then was a RAZR flip phone. It's chess app was a version of Chessmaster that I could beat on its top level.

Had any of us read with sufficient comprehension José R. Capablanca, Chess Fundamentals (1921), we would have known how to use triangulation to secure the win after 1...g5. I had nearly forgotten this lesson until I was playing through an ending presented in C.G. Van Perlo, Van Perlo's Endgame Tactics, new, improved and expanded edition (2014). The ending came up in my study as I was comparing endgame books for "To Know a Position", which I wrote last weekend.

For the children headed to state, I hoped to reinforce some lessons I thought they should have absorbed in September. It is always hard to measure results, but both the elementary team (grades 1-5) and the sixth graders from the middle school brought home trophies--individual and team. School officials perceived me as a successful coach and I have continued to coach youth players.

The lessons I employed that first year as a chess professional at an elementary school were compiled into a booklet that I printed at the school and then had bound at Kinkos. I have learned a lot in the years since. My skills as a teacher have improved. My chess playing ability also rose. I have also learned to print my lessons through Amazon, where I get better quality binding at lower cost, and also am able to make them available to others.