Think Like A King™

by
David MacEnulty
Food for Thought Software, Inc.
P.O. Box 100 • Highland Park, IL. • 60035
phone: 847/433-6515 • fax: 847/433-6523
http://www.schoolchess.com

All Rights Reserved

Food for Thought Software, Inc.
© 1998
 About the Author
Six years ago David MacEnulty became the first full-time New York City public school teacher to teach chess as an
academic subject. Working in a large elementary school in the South Bronx, his team has won first place trophies at
the New York City Scholastic Chess Tournament for four consecutive years, and is one of the top five elementary
chess teams in the nation. From 1994 to 1997, his students won more than 500 individual and team trophies.

These achievements are made all the more remarkable by the fact that his school, Community Elementary School
70, is located in the poorest Congressional District in the country, and its children come from the two highest crime
precincts in the Bronx.

David began his chess teaching career with Chess-in-the-Schools, a non-profit foundation that sends chess teachers
to schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. He has also taught children at the Manhattan Chess Club, the New York
Athletic Club, and worked in after school programs at several public and private New York City Schools. For the
past four years, he has enjoyed teaching at the Brownell-Talbot Summer Chess Camp in Omaha.

David has also produced two videotapes of chess instruction featuring Bruce Pandolfini, and appears in one of his
own aimed at beginning players entitled Chess For Children. In addition, he is just completing a series of
instructional books for beginners to go with the Chess for Children Videotape series. His booklet, The Scholastic
Tournament Book, was written as a guide for parents who are just embarking on the sometimes chaotic ride through
the scholastic chess tournament experience.

David’s extraordinary work with his Bronx chess team has been regularly recognized and applauded by the media
both inside and outside the chess world. He has been featured on several television shows, including CBS Sunday
Morning with Charles Osgood and CNN News, in addition to numerous newspaper articles. Most recently, he was
named the U.S.C.F. Coach of the Month for March, ’98.

Among his favorite chess sayings to elementary school students are, “Look at three or four ideas before choosing
one,” and “If you don’t know where every piece is and what each can do, you aren’t ready for your next move.”

A strong believer in basic technique, he constantly reviews opening principles, tactics, pawn structure, checkmate
patterns, and endgame ideas with his team. “A player’s creativity suffers if technique is lacking. Since a lot of
chess thinking is reasoning by analogy, I want to build a solid foundation of essential information the students can
use in their analytical reasoning. I don’t want to develop a lot of young players who just memorize variations. I
want them to know the ‘why’ of every move they see. That way, if their opponent makes a weak move, they can
come up with a good response. Or if their opponent surprises them with an opening we haven’t worked on, they can
apply the basic principles, and usually come out all right. Does it always work? Of course not! Some of these kids
are only in first or second grade. Does it work more often that not? You bet it does.”

Another of his strong beliefs about scholastic chess is sportsmanship: “I teach the children to respect everyone.
Being a better chess player doesn’t make you a better person. And if someone has just beaten you, shake their hand
and congratulate them. They just did something pretty special: they beat you. You have to show respect for that, or
what are you saying about yourself? It may hurt inside, but that doesn’t give you the right to be rude.”
 Table of Contents

Section I: Introduction...................................................... 2

Section II: The Curriculum.............................................. 3

A: Beginning Curriculum............................................. 3
Phase I: Pre-Chess Skills................................................. 3
Phase II: Basic Moves & Rules...................................... 4
Phase III: The King ........................................................ 4
Phase IV: Special Moves ................................................ 4
Phase V: The Value of Pieces ......................................... 4
Phase VI: Beginning Tactics ........................................... 5
Phase VII: Opening Principles ........................................ 5

B: Advanced Curriculum ............................................. 6

Phase VIII: Strategic Thinking - Getting Beyond
the Basics ................................................ 6
Phase IX: Creating Opportunities ................................... 6
Phase X: More Checkmates ............................................ 6
Phase XI: Endgame Strategies ........................................ 7
Phase XII: Specific Openings ......................................... 7
Outline of Time Requirements........................................ 8

Section III Basic Equipment & Teaching Materials ....... 9

Beyond the Basics: .......................................................... 10

Using Software to Enhance Your Club ........................... 10
Think Like a King™ School Chess Software System
Products:.................................................................. 11
Chess Club Manager© .................................................... 11
Think Like a King™: Your First Lessons in Chess© ..... 13
Think Like A King™ Chess Workouts© Series ............. 14
The No Obligation (Ever!) Software 'Book' Club........... 15
Site Licensing & Volume Discounts............................... 16
How To Order Think Like A King™ Software .............. 17
Preface: About This Guide
Despite the increasing recognition of the value of chess in education, and its popularity in thousands of schools
across the country, most schools in the United States still do not offer any kind of chess program. Although there are
many reasons for this, in most instances it is not time or space or the lack of interest that is the major barrier.
Usually, it is the limited availability of qualified chess teachers that prevents schools from exploring the value of
chess to their own educational community.

But the fact is that most schools that do have chess programs get by quite nicely without the help of professional
chess teachers! Most clubs are run by individual teachers or parents who have a basic familiarity with the game, but
are a long way from being expert players or teachers themselves. And, given the rapid increase in the popularity of
chess in schools in recent years, most new programs are undoubtedly being created by individual volunteers, not
chess experts.

A Curriculum Guide for Scholastic Chess is intended for just this type of person. Whether you are a parent, teacher
or volunteer thinking of starting a school chess club, or someone whose school already has a club but wants to add a
stronger component of chess teaching to their program, this guide is for you.

Teaching chess is like teaching anything else: it is difficult to teach unless the teacher knows something about the
subject! While any chess club could benefit from the help of volunteers - whether they know something about the
game or not - ultimately there must be one person who has at least a passing knowledge of the game. This guide
assumes that the reader has that familiarity, and knows at least how to play the game as well as some of the basic
tactical concepts. If you are at or above that basic skill level, then you can use this guide to help you organize your
own teaching program. If not, don't panic - it is not at all hard to learn! There are many fine basic books on how to
play chess suitable even for adults. Or, you could use one of the modules from our Think Like A King™ chess
software series, Your First Lessons in Chess©, and learn the game on your computer in the easiest fashion possible.

Once you are at that basic knowledge level, you can use this guide to understand the concepts that new players must
master, give you a suggested teaching schedule, and point you in the direction of acquiring some additional teaching
resources you might want. Whether you are a skilled chess player or not, before you know it you will be more than
capable of seeing to it that every player in your club is pointed in the right direction of chess learning and thinking!

As we cover the various topics of a basic chess curriculum, we mention some additional teaching resources you can
use. Whenever relevant, we show you how you might use components of our Think Like A King™ School Chess
Software System to advance your educational program and players' enthusiasm. But we've also listed many fine
texts from other publishers, so you'll have a wide variety of resources to choose from as you design and build your
chess program. And as you do, you'll discover what so many schools have already found: When kids play chess,
they develop not only skills, but a new respect for thinking in general. And as the popularity of the game spreads
throughout your school, a new enthusiasm for learning will surely follow!

1
Section I: Introduction
The game of chess is an exciting war game, wherein two minds do battle using wooden or plastic pieces on a chess
board (or icons on a computer screen), in lieu of words or swords. The great painter Marcel Duchamp, a very strong
chess player, once said that chess was a sport - a violent sport. In many ways, he was right. Chess players delight in
using vicious words to describe their victories: "I crushed my opponent!" "I demolished his position!" But really,
no one gets hurt. The violence of chess is all in our minds, not in our bodies. If you lose, your nose doesn't bleed,
your teeth are all still intact, and there are no embarrassing black eyes to hide. There is a pleasing elegance and
grace to the dance of the pieces as they maneuver for dominance in the kingdom of the board.

In the twelve step curriculum outline described below, areas of chess understanding are given in what may appear to
be neat little compartments, but that should not be the way it is taught. One does not ignore previous knowledge or
shy away from an area yet to be covered in teaching any lesson. As you help the student build a firm foundation, a
lot of cross-referencing will naturally occur, and some paths will lead to a sort of sneak preview of things to come.

Another important point to this curriculum is the sequence of lessons. There is certainly room for disagreement in
the lesson order I have outlined, most notably in my placement of endgame study. The great Jose Raul Capablanca
was of the opinion that endgame study should be the first area to be studied. His notion was that one should know
where one is going (the ending) before beginning the trip (the opening). While there is no question that this is good
advice in working with adults, I don't think he was referring to teaching a group of schoolchildren, some of whom
might be as young as five or six years old, and may simply be developmentally incapable of understanding the
Square of the Pawn, Triangulation, etc. (I know there are exceptions to this - I have taught several - but they are not
the norm.) Young children want to start playing as soon as they can. Once they get past the moves and rules (which
can take a surprisingly long time for some young children, especially if they are learning in a large classroom), they
want information that will help them start the game and chase enemy units all over the board. Opening Principles,
Simple Tactics, and Checkmates feed right in to their needs and their desires. Later, the finesses of Kings and
Pawns in the ending will be more easily understood.

The brain likes to have things make sense; it likes to have things fall into recognizable patterns. Chess knowledge
starts on a simple path, but very quickly branches begin shooting out in an astonishingly large number of directions.
As a chess player's knowledge grows, ideas combine and multiply, feeding new patterns to each other. Soon the
brain develops a love for the richness, complexity, and beauty of the game.

In this article, I have attempted to outline how I teach chess to school children. You can use my ideas as a guide to
help you collect your own teaching materials as you create your own curriculum. Or, if you don't want to assemble
your materials from scratch, you can use these concepts along with the curriculum we've created for you already.
The Think Like A King™ School Chess Software System described in the Appendix gives you all of the tools you'll
need to teach the concepts I've outlined here - interactively, at school and at home, in a way that your students can
use effectively. Whichever route you choose to get kids playing, there's one thing for sure - your school community
will be better off for your efforts, as you help to Make Chess Your School Sport!

2
Section II: The Curriculum
A: Beginning Curriculum

Phase I: Pre-Chess Skills

If you deal with very young children, or those whose education has been lacking in basic skills and concepts, it may
be necessary to spend some time on a few very fundamental ideas. Although it may seem surprising that you'd need
to cover these ideas, if your players don't understand these few very simple concepts they'll never get beyond the
first few lessons. I call these "pre-chess skills".

It all begins with the marvelously simple idea of a straight line:

(A) The chessboard is a large square, and a square is just four equal straight lines joined by four right angles.
Inside the large square are sixty-four smaller squares, all the same size, arranged very neatly in eight rows of
eight squares each. To make the various patterns of squares more easily discernible, we alternate the colors of
the squares so a dark square is followed by a light square, then another dark one, another light one, and so on.

(B) The chessboard makes a clear, easy-to-understand Cartesian Grid, so it's easy to name each square with a letter
and a number. (We'll get to this in more detail later).

(C) The pieces all move in straight lines. Even the Knight, with its peculiar leap, can be said to move in two
straight lines: two squares on a rank or file, and then a right angle turn for one square.

(D) The three straight lines in chess are vertical, horizontal and diagonal. Once you know those, the movements of
all six pieces are easily described.

Thus, the first part of any chess curriculum should be an understanding of straight lines, right angles, squares, rows
of squares making up ranks, files and diagonals, and the naming of the squares on the chessboard. Not only is this
the most logical way to proceed, it is also essential for future communication between teacher and student, as well as
communication between players. Without a grounding in common terminology, talking about different positions is
very difficult.

Depending on the age of the students and the size of the class, this can take anywhere from one-half a lesson to
several lessons. For a class of 24 Kindergartners meeting once a week, these ideas will need to be reinforced in
every lesson for many weeks as you progress through the next phases. Some Kindergartners come to school
knowing the alphabet, how to count, and armed with a lot of other skills that speed the learning. Others may not
even know that there is an alphabet. Obviously, an inability to recognize letters or understand the sequence of our
numbering system will greatly slow the ability to name squares in an alpha-numeric grid. Generally speaking, the
older the students, the more quickly they will grasp these ideas.

.........................................................

Once you're sure that your kids have the pre-chess skills down pat, you are ready for the rules of the game itself. I've
broken this part down into several pieces, covered over the next four units (Phases II - V). Depending upon the ages
and experience of your group, these lessons may go slowly or quickly.

All of the lessons you need to teach in this next part of the curriculum are covered in the Think Like A King™
software series basic tutorial, Your First Lessons in Chess©. With lessons devoted to all of the fundamental
concepts, individual pieces and special moves, plus over 165 interactive puzzles, your students will have ample
opportunity to learn and practice all the basics (and adults new to chess will always be able to stay a step ahead of
their students)!

3
Phase II: Basic Moves & Rules
Phase II is simply learning how the pieces move, followed by how they capture opposing units. Again, maturation
level and the size of the group will determine the amount of time it takes to learn this material. In a large group of
small children, one piece a lesson is reasonable. In a small group of advanced children, two or three pieces in a
lesson (with a bit of remedial work in the future) is realistic. One on one, you can often teach the first five sections
in one sitting!!! If the children are meeting only once a week, some homework based on the lesson is very
important, as otherwise there is nothing in the intervening time to reinforce the learning. (This is where the
interactive tutorials in the Think Like A King™ series can come in quite handy, since kids view solving the chess
problems more as a game than as homework. And for kids without home computers, you can use Chess Club
Manager© to print most of the chess problems in the tutorials as handouts or transparencies)! Without
reinforcement, a tremendous amount of reteaching is necessary in each lesson.

Phase III: The King

The third stage is an understanding of the peculiar features of the King: check, checkmate, stalemate and the three
ways to escape from check (Take, Interpose, and Move, or TIM - as my father told me, "if you're in check, ask
TIM what to do"). In this part of the curriculum, students should learn how each piece can be used to inflict
checkmate, with special emphasis on the Major Piece (Queen and Rook) checkmates, what stalemate is, and when
checkmate is impossible (King and Bishop vs. King, for example). Check and Checkmate are combined for three
lessons. The first is The Ladder Checkmate. This one is especially clear, rendering it fairly easy for children to
understand. It is also very useful from a practical standpoint: many beginners' games are won with the ladder
checkmate. This lesson should be repeated as a warm-up for the next lesson, which is to introduce some simple
support and back rank checkmates in one move with King and Queen and King and Rook. Another checkmate
lesson with other piece combinations is in order before going on to Stalemate and Escape from Check. Since
checkmate is the ultimate goal of both players in every game, from this point on, the students should be given
several Mate in One problems as a warm-up at every lesson. Once again, interactive teaching tools like the Think
Like A King™ Chess Workouts© can be invaluable in this regard, since Volume II: Checkmate Thinking© is
devoted exclusively to this subject.

Phase IV: Special Moves

Now comes part four: the Special Moves. Pawns have all sorts of special rules: they don't capture the way they
move; the first move of each Pawn is different from all others; they're the only unit that can't go backwards or
sideways; when they get to the end of the board, they change to another piece; and then there is the en passant
capture. In a curriculum, Pawn behavior deserves a special place. Alongside the Pawn rules are the unique rules on
castling. Castling is the only time in chess you move two pieces at once; the only time a King can go two squares;
the only time a piece other than a Knight can jump over something; the only move you can't do if you've moved a
particular piece previously (either the King or the Rook); you can't do it to escape check, and you can't do it across
check, and you certainly can't do it into check. Two lessons should be enough for this material, although there will
be grave misunderstandings regarding the en passant capture at the very least.

Phase V: The Value of Pieces

In the fifth Phase of learning chess, the student learns the relative values of the different units, and why they have the
values they do. Simple exercises such as a Value Quiz (you have a choice of two captures - a Knight or a Rook, for
example - - which one do you take?) are very good for reinforcing the concept of relative values. One or two lessons
here, combined with supervised play, should be sufficient to get the point.

4
Phase VI: Beginning Tactics
Next comes learning some elementary tactics such as the fork, pin, skewer, discovery, and undermining. At this
point, we are not concerned with creating the positions that give rise to these shots, but simply in learning how to
recognize what they are and take advantage of them when they appear. In other words, we're aiming for a very
elementary understanding of basic tactics here. Four to six lessons (with homework) of fifteen to twenty minutes
before letting the children play games should be sufficient to get these ideas across. (If you're using the Think Like
A King© system, Chess Workouts Volume I: Tactical Thinking is entirely devoted to these beginning tactics. With
over 280 interactive puzzles covering all of the basic tactical ideas, students get ample practice with every concept
whether they do the puzzles on screen or in handouts that you can create with Chess Club Manager©).

Phase VII: Opening Principles

The seventh section should be an in-depth look at Opening Principles. Without an understanding of what is to be
accomplished in the opening, all sorts of random and irrelevant moves will be made by the beginning chess player.
This is when we begin getting into ideas that are more difficult to assimilate because there is so much irrelevant
material on the board: most of the possible moves in the beginning are not very good. It takes a lot of practice and a
lot of coaching to start making good moves with understanding. At this point, the children will be playing a lot, and
there will be ample opportunity to give a group lesson and then see how individuals are retaining the information.
Allow six or more lessons to get across even an elementary understanding of the opening principles. Chess Workouts
Volume IV: Opening Thinking, would be a handy resource for players at this phase of teaching. (Remember that
we're still in an early phase here, covering principles rather than an in-depth study of specific openings. Those come
later).

By the time Phase VII has been finished, the students should be playing recognizable and reasonable games of chess.
There will, of course, be a lot of moves that could make a master cringe, but there should be some real chess thought
and chess understanding exhibited by the players. However, it would be a big mistake to expect a lot at this phase,
as there are usually going to be glaring oversights for several years to come.

5
B: Advanced Curriculum
Your students should by now be comfortable with the basic rules, moves and tactics of the game. They should be
able to play through complete games (albeit with frequent questionable moves!). They now have all the basic tools
they need to make the transition from chess players to chess thinkers, where they learn to plan ahead and create their
own opportunities.

Teaching at this next level probably requires someone with more than a basic knowledge of the game. Many schools
opt to hire professional chess players or teachers to cover these advanced topics. Be aware, however, that adept
playing does not always translate into good teaching, so it is wise to be sure that the individual you select has
established teaching, as well as playing, credentials!

If such resources are not available to your school, do not despair! If you are even a beginning level player yourself,
you yourself can go through the suggested materials first, and stay one step ahead of your students as you teach them
what you've just learned!

Phase VIII: Strategic Thinking - Getting Beyond the Basics

In the eighth phase, I like to introduce students to some complete games played by Paul Morphy. These games serve
as an excellent springboard to dive into the deeper waters of Tactics, Time, Space, Material, Open Lines and King
Safety. At this point, most players are not ready for a lot about Pawn Structure, but simple notions such as Pawn
Islands, Isolated Pawns, and Doubled Pawns, can certainly be touched upon, especially as they relate to Open and
Half-Open Files. These games are also extremely useful for exploring some very important double King Pawn
Openings. The blend from Opening to Middle Game is very beautifully demonstrated by Morphy (there aren't a lot
of endgames in the Morphy collections, because he usually won way before a true endgame was reached). Six or
seven Morphy games (one a week before the students play each other) should give a lot of room for discussing many
new chess ideas and their practical implementation. A wonderful source for games and commentary would be GM
Chris Ward's book The Genius of Paul Morphy (Cadogan Press 1997).

Phase IX: Creating Opportunities

In the ninth phase, more on tactics and checkmates is essential. The famous quote that chess is 90% (or 99%) tactics
is a good one. Earlier, only one move shots were studied. Now, with a few games of Morphy under our belts, and
many games played by students, it's time to start looking for ways to create the fork, pin, skewer, discovery and
undermining opportunities that occur in every game. The students should be flooded with two and three move
tactical puzzles. Some excellent sources for puzzles like this would be Chessercizes and More Chessercizes, both by
Bruce Pandolfini (Simon and Schuster, 1991), or Winning Chess Tactics, by Y. Seirawan (Microsoft Press 1992)

Phase X: More Checkmates

The tenth phase should be an extended journey into checkmate patterns. Assuming they have been doing some Mate
in One problems at every lesson, or have gone through the Checkmate Thinking Chess Workout Volume, it is now
time to delve deeply into checkmate patterns and two and three move checkmate problems based on some of the
more famous patterns, as well as some unusual checkmate problems. Again, six or seven fifteen minute lessons with
these before the children play their own games will go a long way to developing their skills. Some excellent print
sources for checkmate discussions and puzzles include The Art of the Checkmate, by Georges Renaud and Victor
Kahn (Dover, 1953); Checkmate!, by George Koltanowski (Doubleday, 1978); and Simple Checkmates, by A.J.
Gillam (Batsford, 1978).

6
Phase XI: Endgame Strategies
The penultimate phase of this curriculum plan is a study of endgames. Beginning with the simple notion of the
Square of the Pawn, we study Opposition, Key Squares, Key Positions in Promotion and, depending on the
maturation and skills level of the students, Triangulation. A few basic Rook Endings, such as the Philidor and
Lucena positions, should also be covered at this point, to give the students an idea of some of the stronger
placements of Rooks in the endings. Chess Workouts Volume III: Endgame Thinking©, may prove a very valuable
tool for many in your group as they try to grasp these more advanced topics. In print, an excellent source is
Pandolfini's Endgame Course, by Bruce Pandolfini (Simon & Schuster 1988).

Phase XII: Specific Openings

In the final part of the curriculum, we work on some specific openings. We especially examine such stalwarts as the
Italian Complex (Evans, Two Knights Defense, Giuoco Piano), Scotch, Four Knights and King's Gambit (The
Spanish, or Ruy Lopez deserves a whole phase all its own at a much later date, and it's also way too soon to talk
about the French, Sicilian and Caro-Kann, as well as anything on the Queenside).

A good way to teach an opening is to pick a great game with the particular opening and, using that as the touchstone,
show other ideas that could have been played in the first twelve or fifteen moves. Always follow through with the
rest of the game, so the students will understand that the Opening does not exist in isolation, but is aiming toward a
middle game plan, and that, in turn, frequently is set up for a superior position in the endgame. Next lesson, show
another variation, repeating this for six or seven lessons. Reinforce the lesson by having the students play nothing
but that opening during the time it is being studied, or hold a tournament where that opening must be played in every
game.

Some wonderful source books for a study of chess openings include:

500 Master Games, by S. Tartakover and J. Dumont (Dover Press, 1975). This book is arranged by opening, and the
commentary is excellent for those wanting to explore the ideas behind the moves.

The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess, by Irving Chernev (Simon and Schuster, 1955). Some wonderful examples of
the instant punishment that ensues from not playing the opening well!

How to Play Good Opening Moves, by Edmar Mednis (Cadogan). An excellent modern treatment of why moves are
good or bad in the opening.

7
Outline of Time Requirements
The following outline is a very approximate estimate of the time it takes to teach the different steps in this
curriculum. Do not be surprised if the timing in a particular situation is faster or slower than that given here. I have
found that the range can be quite broad.

Phase Time Required

1. Board 1/2 - 2 lessons
2. Piece moves and captures 3 - 6 lessons
3. The King:
check, checkmate, stalemate,
escape from check 2 - 4 lessons
4. Special Moves:
En Passant and Castling 2 lessons + Playtime
5. Relative Values 1 lesson + Playtime
6. Simple Tactics 4 - 6 lessons + Play
7. Opening Principles 4 - 6 lessons + Play
8. Morphy Games 6 - 7 lessons + Play
9. Strategic Thinking 6 - 8 lessons + Play
10. More Checkmates 6 - 8 lessons + Play
11. Endgame Strategies 6 - 8 lessons + Play
12. Specific Openings 9 - 20 lessons +Play

8
Section III

Basic Equipment & Teaching Materials

Besides the obvious chess boards and pieces, which can be ordered through the USCF Catalogue (at discounted
prices for members), several other items will be useful -- some essential, others optional.

Chess teaching materials in the form of software and books should be readily available to students. Making sure that
students take advantage of these materials, both at school and at home, is critical if you are to keep students
motivated to improve their skills.

Software tends to be more appealing to children learning how to play chess than books, and therefore, a more
effective teaching tool. The animated, interactive graphics of software, which allow students to more clearly
visualize how the pieces move, make it easier for children to learn chess basics. Many children --especially
kindergarten through 6th graders -- find reading chess books a bit overwhelming because of the need to interpret
chess notation and to visualize how one static chess diagram evolves into the next.

There are a number of fine chess software programs available for players of all ages. Some focus on beginners, and
others on advanced concepts of chess. Many
are very sophisticated game-playing programs that let players develop their skills by playing against the computer.
Good as they are, however, most of this software was designed as an aid to individual players already motivated to
learn the game rather than as a tool for a school program. As explained in the following sections, Food for Thought
Software’s Think Like a King™ School Chess Software System was designed specifically for schools, to provide
the necessary Educational, Motivational and Management tools for a successful chess program.

Whether you leave the learning up to the individual player, or decide to use a more structured teaching system like
the Think Like a King Series™, it is axiomatic that the more chess kids do at home, the more successful your club
program will be at school. Specific incentives (like bonus points and awards for outside reading) should be built
into your chess program to encourage students to avail themselves of educational materials both at home and at
school. If possible, you might choose to allow players to add the results of games played between each other outside
of chess club to the club standings.

Several other basic items should be considered for your chess club. Forms to record game position or moves will be
helpful to students, allowing them to analyze or remember games from one meeting to the next. Samples of forms
needed are available from USCF, or use Think Like a King™: Chess Club Manager© to print these directly. If you
have an experienced chess teacher in your program, a wall-mounted teaching board can also be a helpful tool.

As your chess club matures, you may wish to consider acquiring other items. Chess clocks, for example, while
optional, are useful if club members are likely to participate in tournaments. In some, but not all of those forums,
players have limited time in which to make their next move, and special clocks are used to track this time.

Tee shirts for chess team members, as for traditional school sports teams, will help to excite and motivate students.
Again, clubs which participate in tournaments will enjoy the distinction and recognition that comes from custom-
designed tee shirts.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Kids want to play chess during club meetings. Don’t spend too much time at clubs on
didactic (or administrative) activities or students will quickly lose interest. Each coach will need to decide for him-
or herself how much time to devote to formal teaching, with the critical goal being to encourage all students to play
chess -- rather than just to focus on developing the best players!

9
Beyond the Basics:
Using Software to Enhance Your Club

The Think Like A King™ School Chess Software System

Food for Thought Software, Inc. has designed a suite of applications intended to help schools run better chess
programs. The Think Like A King™ Software Series consists of multiple software modules that can be used both at
school or at home. Together, they create an entire computerized chess curriculum that not only organizes your entire
school chess program, but also gives you the tools you need to educate and stimulate your students.

The pieces of the Think Like A King™ System are:

Chess Club Manager©

Your First Lessons in Chess©

Think Like A King™ Chess Workouts©

Volume I: Tactical Thinking
Volume II: Checkmate Thinking
Volume III: Endgame Thinking
Volume IV: Opening Thinking

Chess Workouts© School Player

Chess Workouts© Home Player

School Site License

The No Obligation (Ever!) Software Book Club

Each component of the system is explained in detail in the pages that follow. Whether you choose to purchase all or
only some of the components, our software will enable you to better manage, motivate and educate your students.
Our goal is to help you - and every school - transform chess from an activity to a School Sport. We think that every
school could profit from a strong chess program, where many students benefit directly from learning and playing
chess, and every student benefits from the chess team as role model, sending the message that thinking is winning.

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Think Like a King™ School Chess Software System Products:

Chess Club Manager©

Given an exclusive endorsement by the United States Chess Federation, Chess Club Manager© is the foundation
of our modular suite of software tools designed to help make your school’s Chess program even more successful and
easier to run. With dozens of features designed to help Manage, Motivate and Educate students, wrapped in a clear
and simple interface, Chess Club Manager© may well prove to be the most valuable tool in your Scholastic Chess
Program.

Chess Club Manager© is a multifaceted tool that allows your school to build a program of Chess as a School
Sport, and teach your kids that strategic thinking can be as much fun and as legitimate as any athletic activity. With
the tools provided by Chess Club Manager, students will quickly come to view chess as a “sport for the mind”.

Chess Club Manager© (CCM) has features that let you:

MANAGE your club by:

• Maintaining club rosters and mailing lists
• Recording outcomes of every game played by students, in a simple point and click fashion
• Instantly calculating score changes for players after every game played
• Maintaining club rankings based on a USCF-approved progressive scoring system
• Stratifying your club into subgroups based upon Grades or unique Divisions
• Printing out varieties of commonly needed forms for club use and tournament activity to save hours of
paperwork time

MOTIVATE Students by:

• Encouraging students to seek ever greater challenges in their play by letting them see their progress
• Automatically searching your database to generate and print seven different types of standard Awards
certificates, suitable for framing
• Defining any number of Unique Awards categories to print certificates for any number of players
• Awarding bonus points to individuals or groups for any chess-related activity you define
• Tracking 'Workout Points' from our optional Chess Workouts© interactive teaching modules
• Maintaining statistics to identify players deserving of special recognition or attention

EDUCATE Students by:

• Providing them with a 'window' to a world of affordable, interactive chess educational software modules -- the
Chess Workouts© -- linking their school chess club activities with more learning at home.

When combined with our 'standalone' program, Your First Lessons in Chess©, the Chess Workout
tutorials offer chess clubs a core curriculum to teach and solidify chess skills. Students using the Chess
Workouts at school can run them on Chess Club Manager or an optional School Player©. For home use,
students will receive a FREE Home Player to run the software.

• Automatically printing out handouts or transparencies from our library of Chess Workout© 'Books,' creating
beautiful chess puzzles so that even kids with limited access to computers can benefit from our software.

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You can even create an optional, No Obligation (Ever!) Software 'Book' Club (see below) through your school that
will encourage your students to learn, and earn your club valuable chess premiums!

* * * * *
Chess Club Manager© does all this and more through an interface that is simple enough for even young students to
use on their own! CCM lets you delegate many of your administrative functions to deserving students, freeing you
for other tasks while giving them the opportunity to use a computer for real-world activities. Don’t worry - the
sophisticated security system built into CCM protects your important data even from novice users.

In short, Chess Club Manager© will help to make you not only a better administrator, but a better teacher as well. It
gives you the tools and the knowledge you need to run your school chess program in the most effective and efficient
manner possible!

System Requirements: Macintosh Computer with 68030 (68040 preferred) or PowerPC, and a 640 x 480 resolution, 256 color
monitor; 6 MB of hard drive space; 5 MB of available RAM.

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 Think Like a King™: Your First Lessons in Chess©
Think Like A King™: Your First Lessons in Chess© is not just another computer chess game. In fact, you don’t
play chess against it at all. But what a beginning player can do is learn how to play chess, step-by-step in a hands on
way. Here's what Think Like A King™: Your First Lessons in Chess does:

• Becomes an introductory chess ‘book’ that you 'read' on your home computer

• Combines the best elements of both media: the in-depth descriptions of a book enhanced by simultaneous
animated, interactive computer graphics

• Eliminates the most difficult element of chess books: The constant back-and-forth struggle between text and
static diagrams, trying to imagine how one figure changes to the next

• Students watch pieces move as lessons unfold, or move them themselves for various puzzles and challenges

• Fills a void in existing chess software programs, which rarely adequately address the basic first lessons

• Covers the equivalent of an introductory series of chess lessons as it takes the beginning player through:
- the basic moves and rules
- chess nomenclature and recording conventions
- development and opening strategy
- basic tactics like pins, forks, skewers and discovered attacks
- common endgame checkmate scenarios
• Includes dozens of interactive, challenging exercises to reinforce lessons and help students quickly escalate
their skills

• Includes over 165 introductory level chess puzzles to solve interactively

• Designed for reading-aged children (Grade 3 and up) or even adults trying to keep up with their kids!

• Very young children can do the lessons with an older child or adult, and they'll love doing the interactive
puzzles by themselves!

System Requirements: Macintosh Computer: 68030 (68040 preferred) or PowerPC, and a 640 x 480 resolution, 256 color
monitor; 4 MB of hard drive space; 5 MB of available RAM

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 Think Like A King™ Chess Workouts© Series
The Chess Workouts© tutorials, combined with Your First Lessons in Chess©, provide a complete curriculum to
run a successful scholastic chess program. Your First Lessons in Chess© will teach novice chess players the
fundamentals of chess rules and moves, algebraic notation and chess nomenclature, openings, tactics and endgame
strategy. The Chess Workouts© are designed to pick up where our basic tutorial ends, with an ever-expanding
library of interactive software chess 'books' for beginning through advanced scholastic players.

Authored by David MacEnulty, one of the foremost chess coaches in the New York City Public School System, the
Chess Workouts series was deliberately named to enhance the image of the Chess Player as Mental Athlete.

Here's what The Chess Workouts© tutorials do:

• Provide a core curriculum, so even non-chess playing coaches can run successful chess teaching programs

• Go beyond the basics introduced in Your First Lessons in Chess© to develop chess skills and tactical thinking
in all aspects of the game. Volumes available Fall 1999 include: Tactical Thinking©, Checkmate
Thinking©, Endgame Thinking© and Opening Thinking© Later volumes will expand on these and other
themes for intermediate and advanced scholastic players.

• Combine the very best elements of chess books with those of computers --the rich explanatory detail of text
plus the visual learning that interactive computer animation offers

• Eliminate the struggle to interpret complex chess notation using static chess diagrams, trying to imagine how
one figure changes into another. Students learn as the computer moves pieces to explain a line of play, or
they move on-screen pieces themselves to solve puzzles or explore scenarios

• Allow students to complete Workouts at home (using a FREE Home Player© to run the software) or at school
(using Chess Club Manager© or a School Player©)*

• Allow students without adequate access to computers to receive printed Chess Workouts© puzzle handouts
(via Chess Club Manager©)

• Generate electronic 'score reports' (on disk or hard copy) to enter into the Chess Club Manager© data base to
motivate and reward students (Puzzle 'handouts' can also be scored and entered).

* 'Reading' the Chess Workouts© requires using Chess Club Manager© or a School Player© to 'interpret' the program at school.
The FREE Home Player© is for one student to use at home. The System Requirements below are for either School or Home
Player; for Chess Club Manager, allow 6 MB of disk space. Macintosh: 68030 (68040 preferred) or PowerPC; System 7; 5 MB
available RAM; 1.5 MB disk space; 256 color 640 x 480 monitor. PC: 100% Windows 95-compatible computer system.
(NOTE: will work on Windows 3.1 operating system, but not supported); 2 MB of hard drive space; 800 x 600 high resolution
color monitor.

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 The No Obligation (Ever!) Software 'Book' Club
• The Think Like a King™ Software 'Book' Club provides the perfect way for coaches to ensure that all their
players master the fundamentals of chess, while making the game more fun and exciting

• This optional program has no fees, no commitments, no minimums and no schedules. Use it when you like and
how you like.

• Earn FREE premiums for your school with minimum

'Book' club orders

• Use Chess Club Manager© to print the catalogues and order forms. Send them home with players and return their
orders and payments to Food for Thought Software, Inc.

• We ship directly to students, so you don't have to worry about sorting orders

• Stay current with our new product offerings by downloading catalogue updates directly from our Web site
(www.schoolchess.com). (Chess Club Manager imports the new data automatically). Or contact us by phone,
847/433-6515; fax, 847/433-6523; or e-mail, [email protected] for an update

• Players can always place an individual order just by printing out an order form from Chess Club Manager, or by
contacting us at the above numbers

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 Site Licensing & Volume Discounts
Chess offers something to every child.
So we make it easy to get your whole school -- or your whole district -- playing!

• Our Site License lets you put Think Like a King™ software everywhere in the school. Just buy one full set of
software* and one low site license fee lets you put the same software on every computer in your school

• Imagine a school where kids could practice chess problems in their free time (and even get credit for their efforts
in chess club later) or where every teacher could run a chess 'mini' club!

• Volume Discounts are available for district-wide orders, either for software for school or sets of Chess
Workouts© to use at home. Chess Workouts© can be purchased in quantity wholesale and resold as fundraising
for your club. Contact Food for Thought Software, Inc. and we'll work to create special pricing to serve your
needs!

* A full software set is one copy of Chess Club Manager©, one School Player©, one copy of Your First Lessons in
Chess© and one copy each of the Chess Workouts© Volumes. Subsequent volumes of newly published Chess
Workouts© purchased can be included in your current site license at substantial discount. Check our catalogue or
Web site for license fee.

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 How To Order Think Like A King™ Software
• Contact us directly for Catalogues and Order Forms at:

Food for Thought Software, Inc.

P.O. Box 100
Highland Park, Illinois 60035
Phone: 847/433-6515
Fax: 847/433-6523
E-mail: [email protected]

OR

• Check out our Web site at www.schoolchess.com

OR

• Print catalogues and order forms directly from your copy of Chess Club Manager© (with updates
downloaded to CCM directly from our Web site or by contacting Food for Thought Software, Inc.)

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