Maybe start him on draughts first (=checkers). Kids can master that pretty young: I taught draughts to a four-year-old using empty cartridge cases as pieces (7.62mm belt, so that you could queen a piece by joining two cases together with a link).
In the unlikely event you don't have empty cartridge cases, they sell checkers sets.
Heebie's vision of chess is similar to what it looks like to a normal person when two grandmasters play blindfold chess.
4: Calling it blindfold is kind of silly. If both players are playing "blind" there is no blindfold involved there's just no board or pieces.
There's a really fantastic miniature version of Japanes chess aimed at kids that's surprisingly fun and complicated. I highly recommend it:
http://www.amazon.com/Doubutsu-Import-Japanese-Animal-wooden/dp/B002FL3WVG
Also, it's too bad I don't live near heebie, because I could give Pokey lessons. I gave lessons to a 5-year old when I was in high school. I'm fairly certain that after the 6 months or so of my instruction, he never again had any interest in chess - which is the proper goal of chess instruction.
Chinese chess/xiangqi is also a lot of fun, if you can find a version that has pictures instead of characters. There are elephants, cannons, a river, and the kings have magic laser eyes so they can't look at each other.
Similar to checkers (in that it uses red and black discs) but better is Connect Four. It's better because even if you lose, at the end you get to hit the switch and all the pieces come flying out of the bottom. Super fun!
7 - my Dad, who is a pretty good player, is teaching my 8 year old chess. It only works because she's channeling the anger of grandpa always wins into a long-term goal of dethroning grandpa.
There are two problems with Connect Four.
1. Pokey understands it, but is bad at predicting consequences, and then throws a tantrum when he loses too much.
2. The setup is really, really entrancing if you are Rascal, who does not understand the game but will throw a tantrum if he is not allowed to repeatedly fill the frame up with checkers and then hit the switch so the pieces go flying out of the bottom.
Chess solves both of these problems: It takes forever and Pokey doesn't really understand it, so he doesn't lose. And Rascal doesn't care about it.
It takes forever and Pokey doesn't really understand it, so he doesn't lose
That wasn't how it was for young peep. My sister (5 years older) would play me , and while she wasn't much of a player she did know how to do a 4-move mate, so our games were very short and I did lose. Eventually my anger at losing all the time to my hated sister, got my brain into overdrive and I figured out how to prevent the 4-move mate, and then I was able to beat her. I think after I beat her maybe 3 times, she gave up chess and never played again.
Lee talked about teaching the girls (or at least Mara) chess but hasn't, so all the chess action here is the Masha and the Bear episode that comes after Selah's favorite on the English dub Netflix version.
Chess is for wuss kids anyway. Chess boxing for 5 year olds is how you forge champions.
Chess is for wuss kids anyway. Chess boxing for 5 year olds is how you forge champions.
I hate chess, so I set out to either destroy my kids as quickly as possible, or go out in a blaze of glory. I used to try to play to let them win, but it took too long.
Chess feels like it's from another time to me. I'm always surprised that people still play it.
But Tigre is right. I was trying to teach my five-year-old to throw a straight jab instead of the kiddie hatchet-punch, with limited success. Down deep, he's too worried about other people's feelings to be a fighter. But in a couple of years when I do the same lesson with the younger one, he'll probably say "Why would I do that when I can just gouge out their eyes?" Go forth and conquer, my son.
Down deep, he's too worried about other people's feelings to be a fighter
I don't think this is going to be a problem for Heebie's kids.
My nephew took an interest in chess for a while when he was 6 or 7. He--and we all--called it "chas."
Now he just plays, watches, and talks basketball.
Chess feels like it's from another time to me. I'm always surprised that people still play it.
Me too, and I was devoting all my free time to it online twenty years ago. Computers, blogs, and politics killed it. My style involved playing the man instead of the board, and I don't trust the man to not have an 8-core umpteen megaflop backup anymore
In Japan, they start the little ones with Othello, as a step toward Go. Should be only a couple years til the computers beat the best Go players. Shogi is trivial.
It is from another time, but I don't see why its endurance is surprising.
10: My 13-year-old son got his first win against me two games ago; and got his second win one game ago. He is now condescendingly telling me that I'm really not that bad a player.
re: 17
Our neighbours have twins, about 6 months younger than our (soon to be) 3 year old, and they got them boxing gloves. As a semi-joke present, neither parent seems the boxing/MMA type. I think they have still managed to bash each other with the gloves on a few times, though.
I can't imaging teaching ours to fight. Although, once he starts school, if bullying was to ensue, I imagine I could teach him a good jab, a couple of combinations, and how to kick into the shins effectively.
Then again, my Dad is a fairly tough guy* and has still gotten in fights to my knowledge, in the fairly recent past, but I don't really remember him teaching me anything about fighting, other than showing me a few Judo throws because they were fun demonstrations of leverage, and showing me how to cover up if I was being attacked by more than one person.
* grew up in the Gorbals at the height of Tongland** etc. Went to school with Jimmy Boyle.*** Ex-Army.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongland_(gang_area)
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Boyle_(artist)
My style involved playing the man instead of the board. . .
I played all sorts of board games and war games growing up, but I never liked chess. Mostly because I wasn't very good at it, but it lacked the feel of shared improvisation. The spirit of trying things and then seeing what happened. It felt like the goal, if one was a better player, was to know what would happen.
But, probably that means I just wasn't very good at. Because I enjoyed other games that didn't have a random element -- like othello.
My dad taught us chess at an early age - I had my own chess set, but I preferred to make processions round the board with the pieces. My brother's quite good, but still not as good as my dad. My dad regularly posts chess problems on Facebook. Occasionally I have a go at them.
Should be only a couple years til the computers beat the best Go players.
My girlfriend recently got me into board games and I'm bugging her and everyone we play with by overthinking every move I make. Still won tonight, though. We have discovered that I tend to be fond of euros, which are basically economics games where you have to manage resources and capital in order to get even more resources and capital, usually with some kind of randomness built in. Machi Koro is a good one to start with.