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Chess adds value. It teaches important life skills such as organizing, planning and
decision making:
- Organizing –
playing strong chess involves organizing all your available
resources towards a common goal: checkmating the opponent’s
king.
- Planning –
once your forces are organized, you must plan how to mobilize
them. How will you launch an attack? Or do you need to be
defending? Strong chess demands detailed planning.
- Decision
making – There are sometimes dozens of moves you can choose in a
chess position. Each move is a decision: some more crucial than
others. Playing strong chess involves making multiple quality
decisions.
In addition, chess strengthens and enhances such academic skills as
mathematics, geometry and reading:
- Mathematics
– chess is the ultimate game of problem solving. Even the
simplest of positions require you to count how many pieces
control a particular square.
- Geometry –
each chess piece controls certain squares, or space, on the
chess board. This space has a unique geometric shape for each
piece. If you place a Rook near the center of the chessboard,
you’ll see the space he controls is in the shape of a cross. The
Bishop, an X; the Knight, an octagon; the King, a square, etc.
- Reading -
both chess and reading involve similar cognitive processes such
as decoding, comprehending and analyzing. Numerous studies have
shown that chess participation can enhance reading performance.
For more information see the research link on our Links
page.
Chess also
increases one’s abilities to relate to other people; it has the
power to overcome social differences. You can sit down at a
chessboard with someone of a different age, ethnicity, or social
class or even someone who speaks a different language, and you can
communicate on the same level – you can speak the same language. |