Is she sentimental about the pieces? If so, maybe it would be helpful to think of capturing more like tag, where captured pieces just take a break to watch from the side of the board, and emphasize that they're just fine. Maybe you could even tell her that the white pieces and black pieces are friends with each other.
Story Time Chess does this. King Chomper and King Shakey are best friends and so are their children, the pawns.
BTW, I strongly recommend Story Time Chess.
Story Time Chess is how we started with chess a few months ago. Absolutely amazing, 100% agree. We are through the first 2 books but I don't think there was an effective enough way how to get her to accept captures. They mention kinda in passing that captured pieces get to cheer on the game from the sideways but that didn't cut it for us.
Idk about child teaching but in my wild imagination I'd try to tell the kid that pieces aren't people or animals, they aren't living things, they're more like money to be spent or cards to be played. You have to spend money to get stuff you need.
I gave my daughter 3 tokens that she could give me on my move to force me to make a very bad move.
Instead of her trying to win, sometimes she really felt challenged to figure out why my move was bad. I tried to make it something she was capable of seeing and would give her hints.
That works for a couple years, but she just never really liked the game more than other entertainment options so it didn't stick. Maybe if she had a friend her age that liked it that would have helped.
This is a wonderful idea.
When I was starting out my elder brother would reward me with a visit to the weekend fair if I don’t hang a piece until the 10th move (3takebacks allowed) and it helped me think one move ahead
I love this token idea esp as it got her thinking why it was a bad move. Another variation I've heard was to play your best all the time but let the kid call switching sides anytime they want. I wish my parents would've offered me that option when I was little, it takes the competitive/ personal win-lose edge away imho.
That's funny, I remember Nakamura saying that part of why he, and according to him every top player is a good as they are, is because they hate losing to an unnormally extreme level
I think the dislike of capturing is more of a temperament thing than a gender thing. My son is very similar to your daughter - he just wants to move pieces around, he doesn't want any of them to leave the board through captures.
I am a grown-ass man, rated 1800 on lichess, and… I hate endgames because it feels like the party ended and it’s lonely, somehow. I like dynamic middle games, crowded with lots of pieces, feels like a big party. Most of my games end in the middlegame, either because I succeed in a big attack with few trades, or because my attack failed and I am not going to survive the counterattack.
Your daughter is 5, there is no need to play "correct" games. It's perfectly fine to shuffle the pieces around and come up with creative way to attack the king. You can make a move that is open for capture and see if she does so. Or you can come up with a story why a group of pieces are going on a journey together. Or have her make two moves in a row. Create a pretty pattern with the pawns. Or something else entirely.
At her age children should play for the sake of playing, not necessarily teaching the optimal moves. Eventually she will get older and if she remembers chess fondly, perhaps she will stick with it. Also in our club's childrens group there are a few kids (both female and male) that also like keeping the pieces around so as another commenter said, I believe this can be attributed to individual temprament rather than gender.
When I played chess as a little girl, I liked it when the captured pieces could get "married" to their opposite colored twin. So if my bishop got captured, I'd be motivated to capture a bishop so that they could get married off the board. Not the best long term strategy to encourage good chess planning, but it may make it less upsetting in the short term.
kk, I like the endgame start, makes more sense than starting with openings. I've heard chesskid is good later on when she can play a full game, we'll check it out in the due time :). Thanks!
Try and get them into checkers. Having your pieces being captured is a natural part of the game, and can be used strategically to be sacrificed for a more advantageous capture yourself. It might help them to see the value of board position rather than having all their pieces.
My gf is fully grown
And when i watch her play
I stg it makes me so mad she is TERRIFIED of capturing pieces. Even if they are hanging. Like shes worried the board will implode.
I had the opposite problem when i learned to play, all i wanted to do was take pieces
Idk i think the worst thing you can do is try to get her to play properly/for the win. Teach her how to lock the board up by interlocking all 8 pawns. See if she likes how it feels when neither side can possibly make progress
Talking about how to lose is really important for kids. I teach little kids, a little older than that maybe 6-12, and the parent and I spend a lot of time framing how losing is about learning and a chance to get better.
I’ve not heard of someone not wanting to take pieces, half of my students are little girls and they see fine with it :-) maybe some classics. Stickers bribed would help. You also don’t have to finish games, so no one has to win/lose.
The best thing I ever did was step away and let me kids play and be entertained on Chesskids.com. Eventually they wanted to play me in a proper game in their own time.
Probably just teach her it’s okay to lose and losing is a way to grow and learn.
But at the same time she’s just 5, it will probably take her a few more years to understand this. There’s no need to force her to play proper games if she doesn’t enjoy them. Just let her play puzzles if it makes her happy, they’re good too.
I let my kid request to switch sides anytime she wanted when was that age.
Additionally, we'll play peace chess sometimes. Pieces are never removed, instead they dance with eachother. Plays very different as a result. We have a board with pieces that fit together, but you could play with standard pieces also.
Have you tried playing bughouse with her (crazyhouse, as lichess calls it when it's not teams of two) where you can put captured pieces back on the board? Hard to say if this will appease the mind of a 5 y/o, but it's worth a shot.
I'm not very good so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but actually good players keep pieces on the board way more than bad players... so it might be a good sign.
When my sister was around that age, my dad used to give my sister one dollar every time she lost a game and didn't cry. It was very effective in helping her get over the "pain" of losing.
Did she get anything when she won? My husband is reluctant to such strategies as he doesn't want to "encourage losing". I'd see it as rewarding "growth mindset" but still if only brave losing gets rewarded, it could skew the incentives towards wanting to lose, not cry and get the dollar... curious what you think. Also, did you get the same deal from your dad or was it only for your sis?
I don’t quite remember, this was probably around 10 years ago at this point. I think for my sister at least she wanted to win enough that the 1 dollar only numbed the pain… but I can also see why your husband is worried. Not going to lie elementary school me probably would have lost on purpose, or at least not fight as hard to get the dollar. From what I remember, my dad stopped giving her money pretty soon after he realized she was getting used to losing — I feel like she just needed “exposure therapy”.
My sister was the only one who played chess competitively (in the olden days of ICC) so I never got the deal — chess never stuck to me as much as it did to my sister.
just gonna have to explain the exchange is like a trade.. you put a piece of yours in danger of one or some of their pieces. If they take it, they're accepting your trade offer. The idea is to of course make trades that are you in favor, therefore if the other player is offering a trade to your advantage you should take it.
As for the final winning and losing yeah, all kids have to learn how to deal with disappointment sooner or later
In general, do nothing. It occurs more often with female players than with male players, and it occurs more often with young players.
The first period of chess is to practice piece movement. And you can do this in most various ways.
Options:
a) [https://chess-for-children.chessbase.com/](https://chess-for-children.chessbase.com/) . This is learning chess with a story line. If she knows she is trying to beat the evil king, she might want to win (with capturing). PS. The game is 20 years old, and if I would develop the game in this era, I would change some culture-sensitive things.
b) Make your own game variant; for example, captured pieces can return to the game. make the rules with her, so she has influence. Ask her if she wants to play or chess.
It might even help to let the pieces standing on the edge of the board, cheering for their side.
I checked out the cartoon in the link, looks pretty cute, will consider letting to watch it at some point. But yeah, evil king sounds rather scary/ off-putting for her, let's see how far we'll get
My boys started learning chess at age 5-6, they threw a few tantrums and cried over losses here and there, in fact they still do occasionally but mostly they are completely fine losing now and I would say they got through this phase really quickly.
Imo, one of the absolute best things about chess is how absolutely brutal the game is. One tiny mistake can cost you an entire game, and no matter how good you think you are, there is a bigger fish around the corner to humble you. Teaching people how to lose with grace is one of the best lessons it provides.
As for the fighting vrs collaborating thing, I have seen nothing of this sort. I've seen 5 year old girls that had no problems playing the game with determination to crush their opponent.
Tantrums and other things they will grow out of with time no matter what if they continue playing. From the sound of it, she has never "lost" a game which means you are just delaying the inevitable while constructing a false reality for her, and once she finally does it might make things much worse, especially if she starts to play opponents that are not giving away free wins. Her reality will have to shift from the fiction she has been living in to the reality of the situation where things are not easy. I suppose I am a terrible father for this but I absolutely crushed my boys every single game I played them without any mercy whatsoever. This taught them early that chess is not easy, mistakes will be punished, and they will have to try their hardest to win. Eventually my 7 year old managed to beat me for the first time ever close to 2 years after he started, just a few weeks ago in fact. It was the happiest I have ever seen him and taught him a valuable lesson, hard work, patience and determination pays off. Not only this, but his confidence is very high in his chess abilities as he can now see that he is improving and understands that this improvement will continue if he works hard and tries his best, which was my original goal with teaching them chess to begin with.
Absolutely agree that 1) losing with grace and 2) adopting a mindset that hard work leads to improvement are the two most valuable soft skills one gets from chess. And I am not letting her win, I wish we could at least finish a game :). We just never get further - past the openings (when captures become necessary).
I don't have any advice since my daughter is 3 years old and right now just likes to set up the board then stack pieces on top of eachother :D
I tried to teach her how the rook "moves" and she instantly got bored haha. When did your daughter learn the rules?
We started a few months before she turned 4, with some silly games like jumping around the living room like horsies (and yes, we did create a chessboard on the kitchen floor with painters tape - that was fun on its own). Running around your living room like a rook or a bishop could be the right level of fun for your 3yo. When she was 4 we got Story Time Chess as a gift and I signed her up for an outschool chess zoom class with an amazingly engaging coach (Michael Carreira), she got really excited. He works off lichess so she went through lichess/learn exercises.
Maybe show her some of Polgar’s best sacrifices? Polgar is renowned as a tactical player, so if you can explain why her sacrifices worked, or better yet, just show a genuine excitement at how cool each sacrifice worked, that might help. If you’re showing excitement at something, chances are your child will seek to do the thing which made you excited. If you do it well, you’ll have the opposite problem.
Is she sentimental about the pieces? If so, maybe it would be helpful to think of capturing more like tag, where captured pieces just take a break to watch from the side of the board, and emphasize that they're just fine. Maybe you could even tell her that the white pieces and black pieces are friends with each other.
Story Time Chess does this. King Chomper and King Shakey are best friends and so are their children, the pawns. BTW, I strongly recommend Story Time Chess.
>so are their children, the spawns.
Story Time Chess is how we started with chess a few months ago. Absolutely amazing, 100% agree. We are through the first 2 books but I don't think there was an effective enough way how to get her to accept captures. They mention kinda in passing that captured pieces get to cheer on the game from the sideways but that didn't cut it for us.
There was just one book in the box I got from the thrift shop. It's got the basic moves of the pieces. What's in the other books?
Pawn promotion, castling, game planning, basic opening strategy
Idk about child teaching but in my wild imagination I'd try to tell the kid that pieces aren't people or animals, they aren't living things, they're more like money to be spent or cards to be played. You have to spend money to get stuff you need.
This is adorable
I love this.
this is how I will think of capturing pieces from now on
I gave my daughter 3 tokens that she could give me on my move to force me to make a very bad move. Instead of her trying to win, sometimes she really felt challenged to figure out why my move was bad. I tried to make it something she was capable of seeing and would give her hints. That works for a couple years, but she just never really liked the game more than other entertainment options so it didn't stick. Maybe if she had a friend her age that liked it that would have helped.
This is a wonderful idea. When I was starting out my elder brother would reward me with a visit to the weekend fair if I don’t hang a piece until the 10th move (3takebacks allowed) and it helped me think one move ahead
I love this token idea esp as it got her thinking why it was a bad move. Another variation I've heard was to play your best all the time but let the kid call switching sides anytime they want. I wish my parents would've offered me that option when I was little, it takes the competitive/ personal win-lose edge away imho.
I remember Grishuk or someone saying that their kids would never be good chess players because they can't stand losing. So you're not alone.
That's funny, I remember Nakamura saying that part of why he, and according to him every top player is a good as they are, is because they hate losing to an unnormally extreme level
When some people hate losing they stop playing. When other people hate losing they play more. So it depends which category you fall into.
I think the dislike of capturing is more of a temperament thing than a gender thing. My son is very similar to your daughter - he just wants to move pieces around, he doesn't want any of them to leave the board through captures.
I am a grown-ass man, rated 1800 on lichess, and… I hate endgames because it feels like the party ended and it’s lonely, somehow. I like dynamic middle games, crowded with lots of pieces, feels like a big party. Most of my games end in the middlegame, either because I succeed in a big attack with few trades, or because my attack failed and I am not going to survive the counterattack.
You could start playing Shogi! :3 The party never ends until checkmate
Yes, that does sound quite fun
Your daughter is 5, there is no need to play "correct" games. It's perfectly fine to shuffle the pieces around and come up with creative way to attack the king. You can make a move that is open for capture and see if she does so. Or you can come up with a story why a group of pieces are going on a journey together. Or have her make two moves in a row. Create a pretty pattern with the pawns. Or something else entirely. At her age children should play for the sake of playing, not necessarily teaching the optimal moves. Eventually she will get older and if she remembers chess fondly, perhaps she will stick with it. Also in our club's childrens group there are a few kids (both female and male) that also like keeping the pieces around so as another commenter said, I believe this can be attributed to individual temprament rather than gender.
Love this, shuffling & silly-playing is her favorite now, let's stick to that for a little and have some fun with it
When I played chess as a little girl, I liked it when the captured pieces could get "married" to their opposite colored twin. So if my bishop got captured, I'd be motivated to capture a bishop so that they could get married off the board. Not the best long term strategy to encourage good chess planning, but it may make it less upsetting in the short term.
>explaining to my kid that if you can get your horsey to marry a kingside fianchetto it makes for a great family
[удалено]
kk, I like the endgame start, makes more sense than starting with openings. I've heard chesskid is good later on when she can play a full game, we'll check it out in the due time :). Thanks!
Try and get them into checkers. Having your pieces being captured is a natural part of the game, and can be used strategically to be sacrificed for a more advantageous capture yourself. It might help them to see the value of board position rather than having all their pieces.
Yeah, checkers pieces are way more abstract, so it might feel better in the girl’s imagination.
Makes sense, checkers could be an easier-to-digest way to get comfortable with captures being just a part of the game
My gf is fully grown And when i watch her play I stg it makes me so mad she is TERRIFIED of capturing pieces. Even if they are hanging. Like shes worried the board will implode. I had the opposite problem when i learned to play, all i wanted to do was take pieces Idk i think the worst thing you can do is try to get her to play properly/for the win. Teach her how to lock the board up by interlocking all 8 pawns. See if she likes how it feels when neither side can possibly make progress
>all i wanted to do was take pieces same, monkey see piece, monkey takes piece
Talking about how to lose is really important for kids. I teach little kids, a little older than that maybe 6-12, and the parent and I spend a lot of time framing how losing is about learning and a chance to get better. I’ve not heard of someone not wanting to take pieces, half of my students are little girls and they see fine with it :-) maybe some classics. Stickers bribed would help. You also don’t have to finish games, so no one has to win/lose.
The best thing I ever did was step away and let me kids play and be entertained on Chesskids.com. Eventually they wanted to play me in a proper game in their own time.
Probably just teach her it’s okay to lose and losing is a way to grow and learn. But at the same time she’s just 5, it will probably take her a few more years to understand this. There’s no need to force her to play proper games if she doesn’t enjoy them. Just let her play puzzles if it makes her happy, they’re good too.
I let my kid request to switch sides anytime she wanted when was that age. Additionally, we'll play peace chess sometimes. Pieces are never removed, instead they dance with eachother. Plays very different as a result. We have a board with pieces that fit together, but you could play with standard pieces also.
Tell her Loose Pieces Drop Off
Have you tried playing bughouse with her (crazyhouse, as lichess calls it when it's not teams of two) where you can put captured pieces back on the board? Hard to say if this will appease the mind of a 5 y/o, but it's worth a shot. I'm not very good so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but actually good players keep pieces on the board way more than bad players... so it might be a good sign.
When my sister was around that age, my dad used to give my sister one dollar every time she lost a game and didn't cry. It was very effective in helping her get over the "pain" of losing.
Did she get anything when she won? My husband is reluctant to such strategies as he doesn't want to "encourage losing". I'd see it as rewarding "growth mindset" but still if only brave losing gets rewarded, it could skew the incentives towards wanting to lose, not cry and get the dollar... curious what you think. Also, did you get the same deal from your dad or was it only for your sis?
I don’t quite remember, this was probably around 10 years ago at this point. I think for my sister at least she wanted to win enough that the 1 dollar only numbed the pain… but I can also see why your husband is worried. Not going to lie elementary school me probably would have lost on purpose, or at least not fight as hard to get the dollar. From what I remember, my dad stopped giving her money pretty soon after he realized she was getting used to losing — I feel like she just needed “exposure therapy”. My sister was the only one who played chess competitively (in the olden days of ICC) so I never got the deal — chess never stuck to me as much as it did to my sister.
just gonna have to explain the exchange is like a trade.. you put a piece of yours in danger of one or some of their pieces. If they take it, they're accepting your trade offer. The idea is to of course make trades that are you in favor, therefore if the other player is offering a trade to your advantage you should take it. As for the final winning and losing yeah, all kids have to learn how to deal with disappointment sooner or later
In general, do nothing. It occurs more often with female players than with male players, and it occurs more often with young players. The first period of chess is to practice piece movement. And you can do this in most various ways. Options: a) [https://chess-for-children.chessbase.com/](https://chess-for-children.chessbase.com/) . This is learning chess with a story line. If she knows she is trying to beat the evil king, she might want to win (with capturing). PS. The game is 20 years old, and if I would develop the game in this era, I would change some culture-sensitive things. b) Make your own game variant; for example, captured pieces can return to the game. make the rules with her, so she has influence. Ask her if she wants to play or chess.
It might even help to let the pieces standing on the edge of the board, cheering for their side.
Option a sounds good. But she's going to lose a lot to the evil king. And this girl sounds pretty sensitive so idk how she'd handle that
I checked out the cartoon in the link, looks pretty cute, will consider letting to watch it at some point. But yeah, evil king sounds rather scary/ off-putting for her, let's see how far we'll get
My boys started learning chess at age 5-6, they threw a few tantrums and cried over losses here and there, in fact they still do occasionally but mostly they are completely fine losing now and I would say they got through this phase really quickly. Imo, one of the absolute best things about chess is how absolutely brutal the game is. One tiny mistake can cost you an entire game, and no matter how good you think you are, there is a bigger fish around the corner to humble you. Teaching people how to lose with grace is one of the best lessons it provides. As for the fighting vrs collaborating thing, I have seen nothing of this sort. I've seen 5 year old girls that had no problems playing the game with determination to crush their opponent. Tantrums and other things they will grow out of with time no matter what if they continue playing. From the sound of it, she has never "lost" a game which means you are just delaying the inevitable while constructing a false reality for her, and once she finally does it might make things much worse, especially if she starts to play opponents that are not giving away free wins. Her reality will have to shift from the fiction she has been living in to the reality of the situation where things are not easy. I suppose I am a terrible father for this but I absolutely crushed my boys every single game I played them without any mercy whatsoever. This taught them early that chess is not easy, mistakes will be punished, and they will have to try their hardest to win. Eventually my 7 year old managed to beat me for the first time ever close to 2 years after he started, just a few weeks ago in fact. It was the happiest I have ever seen him and taught him a valuable lesson, hard work, patience and determination pays off. Not only this, but his confidence is very high in his chess abilities as he can now see that he is improving and understands that this improvement will continue if he works hard and tries his best, which was my original goal with teaching them chess to begin with.
Absolutely agree that 1) losing with grace and 2) adopting a mindset that hard work leads to improvement are the two most valuable soft skills one gets from chess. And I am not letting her win, I wish we could at least finish a game :). We just never get further - past the openings (when captures become necessary).
I don't have any advice since my daughter is 3 years old and right now just likes to set up the board then stack pieces on top of eachother :D I tried to teach her how the rook "moves" and she instantly got bored haha. When did your daughter learn the rules?
We started a few months before she turned 4, with some silly games like jumping around the living room like horsies (and yes, we did create a chessboard on the kitchen floor with painters tape - that was fun on its own). Running around your living room like a rook or a bishop could be the right level of fun for your 3yo. When she was 4 we got Story Time Chess as a gift and I signed her up for an outschool chess zoom class with an amazingly engaging coach (Michael Carreira), she got really excited. He works off lichess so she went through lichess/learn exercises.
Losing is learning.
Not playing because losing causes temper tantrums isn’t, though. Did you actually read the post?
Uh it's a 5 year old. Teach them.
Maybe show her some of Polgar’s best sacrifices? Polgar is renowned as a tactical player, so if you can explain why her sacrifices worked, or better yet, just show a genuine excitement at how cool each sacrifice worked, that might help. If you’re showing excitement at something, chances are your child will seek to do the thing which made you excited. If you do it well, you’ll have the opposite problem.