Teaching chess to my daughter :)
Hello Everybody,
Grand Master R.B.Ramesh(me!)
This is my first blog and what better way to start it off than to write about the 2 things that are close to my heart, my daughter Varsha Ramesh and CHESS.
Varsha is about –to- be- 4 year old daughter of mine. My wife is Woman Grand Master Aarthie Ramaswamy who happens to be the former World Under 18 Girls Champion in 1999. No wonder we both want our daughter to scale the heights we both were afraid to even dream about.
With this noble wish at heart I tried to teach Chess to Varsha a few days back. It was a terrible disaster! She just wants to beat me every time even though she doesn’t know to move the pieces.
Varsha (left) with Ganesh learning Chess
Being a Grand Master myself it is not easy to lose every game even though it is to your own daughter who doesn’t know Chess!
My wife Woman Grand Master Aarthie with World Champion Anand Viswanathan
We decided it is best to let a professional take over and approached our friend Ganesh to attempt the impossible- teach chess to Varsha!
In her first Chess class, we could hear her chatting about her friends from School and teaching Ganesh how to win quickly by cutting off all the pieces in one move with her hand. The chair was much too big for her and she had to stand on it to look at the board and pieces. What a sight it was!
To be honest we both were more than worried about how she will take to learning from Ganesh. But it couldn’t have gone better than this, Ganesh was extremely patient with her and handled her better than we could have hoped for. Now Varsha knows the basics of the game more or less thanks to Ganesh’s patient approach.
I have always wondered what is the best age to introduce Chess to young kids. I learnt the game myself when I was 11 years of age. Many of my students these days are from 9 to 18 years. I guess around 4 years should be ideal to learn the game.
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R
B Ramesh
Sundararajan Kidambi
Magesh Chandran
Am sure it must have been a very beautiful though, strange experience for the Grandmaster couple to actually see their daughter learn the game which is so close to their heart … as parents
The efforts of Grand Master couple to start early to make another ace in chess is much appreciated!!!
There are lot of research studies around the right age for starting chess for children. One such is Dr. Hans Jürgen Eysenck’s (1916 –1997) work on intelligence and personality.
He said that the innate intelligence in a person, like his other physical abilities, continues to grow with age as a normal process. But what is significant is that the growth continues up to an age of about nineteen after which it remains more or less at same level for some years and then a decline starts. What is even more astounding is that 50% of this total intelligence is said to develop within the first four years and the remaining 50% in the next 15 years. In other words, if we could nurture the child to reach above-average intelligence by four years of age, he/she would have doubled that higher intelligence at nineteen making for a super intelligent person!
Going by this, 3 to 4 years seems to be the right age to introduce the game of chess to children…
Unfortunately, most parents leave their children to grow in their own fashion during these initial years and start paying attention to the child’s mental growth only when he/she is ready to enter regular school and by that time, a substantial opportunity for the child’s mental development has been lost!
Learning chess is indeed beneficial for children for the development of their scholastic as well as life skills. Chess will help children grow up to be intelligent and rational human beings who will make a success of their lives and be pillars of our society.
Thanks for the nice words and the whole lot of useful information. I am sure the above info will be useful to prospective parents wondering when to introduce their kids to specialized activities.
I wish I was a 2 year old now and somebody introduces me to Chess
hello ramesh sir
its a cool picture- seeing your 4 yr daughter learning chess… i wish her all d best and hope to see her as GM …..
hi ramesh,
this is sankaranarayanan s. do u remember to having come to our Shakthi chess academy for a live interview some years back by NDTV. it was a hot morning and u talked about chess. of course i cd. not remember whether the interview went off or not.. I met your young kid in the warm hands of your in-laws at the marriage function of Mr.Narayanan son of Sri. Sampathkumar. It is very cute to see your sibling learning chess from another Super coach Mr.Ganesh.
All the best for the future GM as Basha expressed his desire.
Sankaranaryanan, Jr.Consultant Shakthi chess academy, Musiri Subramnian St., Mylapore Ch. 4
I am going through something similar myself. My son is 4 (will turn 5 next April). I have been wondering if(!) and when I should introduce him to chess. All he knows now is to arrange the pieces on the board, but I feel his attention span is too short to learn anything more. Keep posting on the progress – would be great to know the details.
Hi Varsha ,
All the best for your future grand master
Regards,
Dharani sree
Chess Gurukul
Hi Ramesh,
. For the last few days have started introducing him to moves….with fun games such as 2 kings on board chasing each other, playing with only pawns, rooks chasing each other…we play only when he wants to and asks for it…& he is enjoying it, and is picking up quite fast….if you have any ideas for more creative fun ways to teach chess to so small kids… pls. do share…
Its nice to see your young daughter playing chess. My son turned 3 today. and i am now initiating him into chess. I introduced him to the chess pieces (minus the board) when he was around 1 1/2 years of age, so he has been playing with the pieces & can name them since then. Also somewhere around 8 months back or so, he learnt to arrange all the pieces on the board correctly for the starting position, (white queen on white square etc). (though he only chooses white everytime
Abhijit Phadke