160 new chess lessons in the black levels

"I got all the diplomas. When are the new levels coming?" For all the children who have sent us this kind of messages lately, we have good news: today we released 160 new chess lessons in the diploma level with the black chess pieces as a symbol.

After Pawn  2, the Knight 2 level (40 lessons) has now been officially released. And that's not all. The next three 'black' lesson series (Bishop 2, Rook 2 and Queen 2, together another 120 lessons) are - in beta - already available as well!

With the release of these new lessons, all children who have been gripped by the chess virus and are the most advanced in Chessity, can get back to learning exciting new chess stuff. Just like Pawn 2, the new lessons build on familiar concepts and add new skills. The children learn new chess tactics and learn to make real cool tactiful combinations.

Tactics and skills that are covered include: pins, double attacks, defending, discovered attacks, X-ray attacks, trapping, passed pawns, batteries, forcing moves and search strategy.

Record-breakers

In addition to thematic lessons, we've created a lot of lessons with mixed exercises. Solving these puzzles resembles the thinking that children have to do during an ordinary game. In a game you have to figure out what is going on on the board, what tactics you could use and what is the best move. The mixed theme lessons are excellent training for this.

Of course, the challenging and popular Record-breakers also feature in the new lesson series. They provide playful training in flawlessly solving puzzles. After all, making no mistakes is very important in chess. If you blunder, you can lose, even if you are a very good chess player.

Don't play too fast

Playing too fast is a 'mistake' that all children and beginners make. It is part of normal chess development. You see a nice move, get excited and play it straight away. That your opponent can take your queen or another piece in return, ah well, that hardly spoils the fun.

In a game of chess in which both players play quickly and make blunders, it is actually not really a problem. There is a lot of action on the chess board, you win some, you lose some, and both players have lots of fun. This fun generates intrinsic motivation to want to become a better chess player, to learn more. That is the time when in it becomes important to learn to carefully study the position before playing a move, to check if your move is really as smart as you think it is (how can my opponent respond?) and to see if there might be an even better move.

Children who have advanced to the black lesson levels can already play chess so well that they can learn to make less impulsive moves. The advice to 'sit on your hands’ can be useful, but the chess lessons in the black diploma levels that focus on positional pitfalls are certainly very efficient. In these lessons you have to be careful that you play the right move. Otherwise, there is a good chance that you will be tricked by the puzzles and fall into the pitfall. Super instructive!

Curious about the new lessons? Check them out here