LUDDITES OF THE WORLD—REPENT! I’m a Luddite (look it up!). I freely
admit it. My portable radio uses vac- uum tubes and comes with a bat- tery pack the size of a picnic basket. My telephone still has something called a “chord” attached to it. I don’t have call forwarding, call waiting, callus interuptus, or any of those other annoying appli- cations. My roadster has wing vents and
when I want air conditioning in my car, I open all the windows. And yet, after nearly losing my
beloved library to Hurricane Irene, I’ve almost decided to repent. I went to Barnes & Noble and looked at a Nook. It’s true! I have proof! My son took a photo of me. On his cell phone.
Are ebooks obsolete? The next step was to find a use
for a Nook. Enter National Master David Levin. He wrote an ebook, Chess Strategy for Children.
It’s really basic stuff and as you
may guess from the cover, it is writ- ten for kids! So if you have access to one of those I-Don’t-Like-To- Carry-Books devices, this ebook is worth investigating. Now I’m excited. Now I have a reason to buy a Nook! Now … “Wait a minute,” says my son with
the cell phone, camera, alarm clock, calendar device. “They have an app for that.”
They have an app for that And sure enough, after reading
some of the ads in Chess Life, I found Chess U from
www.seven
thrank.com and championed by IM Mark Ginsburg. And then I found an app for Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess, which was a best selling video before it became a best sell- ing DVD. But by far, the most ambitious
app is simply called Chess Camp. There are seven volumes planned by the publisher, Mongoose Press. Three are already available. Let’s see what the publisher has to say:
This collection of problems opens
a series of a new kind of problem books. Some of the problems in it may seem absurdly simple to ex- perienced chess players or coaches. But that isn’t the case— the simplicity of our problems is su- perficial. If the required attention hasn’t
For about six bucks, you can ob-
tain a copy from the publisher: Syl- logism Press, 875 Emory Shield Road, Murphy, NC 28906, (732- 290-7901), or you can contact David at his website: www.davi
dlevinchess.com.
8 Chess Life for Kids!
been paid in the past to the devel- opment of these kinds of simple problems, that highlights the fact that there are still many blank spots in the issue of how to begin learn- ing the game of chess. This has to do with the fact that in
October 2011
every country in the world these problem books are written by strong practical players for whom certain subjects seem too simple to be worth any attention at all. Such au- thors don’t take into account the fact that the earliest stage of in- struction deserves closer attention than it has received up until now.
As a result, in previously pub-
lished problem collections, a large stratum of useful chess exercises has remained unrevealed. The main goal of the Chess Camp book series is to correct this omission.
In order for the beginning chess
player to learn to play chess well later on, a strong foundation should first be established. To this end, be- ginning players should first get the feel of the possibilities of each piece separately, and also familiarize themselves with the comparative strengths of the pieces. Our series of thematic exercises with a small number of pieces on the board serves this purpose. At the same time, problems from
the so-called “pre-checkmate” pe- riod play a very important role in the initial stage of instruction. Very
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