THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

Many former chess-playing friends of mine are reaching retiring stages of their careers. Some have also pondered whether they would be made redundant in time to come as the brutal attrition at the workplace continues at a punishing pace. I have known at least 2 who have made chess-training their 2nd career option. One is Winston Williams, a former player for ACS and ex Singapore Police Inspector now residing in UK. The other is Marcus Chan, whom I had worked with for 2 years at the CTEP in Malaysia and now a FIDE-rated player. Marcus had switched careers quite early on the contrary but I am sure he has made serious consideration on this matter. When I decided to become a trainer back in 2003, I had realised that my days in IT were numbered owing to the quick advances in technology which I would have trouble keeping up with. Moreover, my passion in teaching chess started way back in the 80s since my student days in RI which convinced me that I had the knack for this trade. Since then I ...

First written back in 2008.. Thought I'd take this time to document one of my teaching joys, strangely, to my friends in Malaysia! It was a near 8 years but thoroughly worth mentioning.  One day in 1996 Mr Peter Long called me to ask if I would be interested to train a group of juniors from Chess Association of Selangor for 4 days in Penang, as he was busy and could not do it. It was a tough time for me at work, as my company was going through a split and I had to manage the IT separation task for my department. But somehow the lure of teaching chess was too hard to resist, so I agreed.   I met up with Tse Pin and Jason, the coordinators for the CTEP (Chess Training for Excellence Program) in Penang in December with Mr Lee (Samantha Lee's dad) who was the chaperon. The trainees were Lim Yee Weng, Matthew Khor,Yow Keat Tong and Ng Ee Vern. They were selected for finishing tops in the CAS junior tournament in 1996 and were selected for the program to be conducted at Sandy B...

On one end I have students who cannot find the time to play, yet at the other end I have to rein in some of their enthusiasm. Quite an interesting job being a chess trainer, right? Dealing with inactivity is tough - much depends I believe on not just the interest of the student, but the number of activities he/she has. I had just lost a student because he just had too much homework to have any other spare time to rest, let alone play. Recent studies about children aged 4-10 suggest that they are not getting enough sleep (recommended 11 hrs a day for younger kids and minimum 10 for those 8-10). Will this development take its toll on the child's development? I bet it does. Flooding a child's time of a day with tuition, homework etc simply does not give him the necessary time to reflect, ponder and internalise what has been taught. Hence it is through regular, purposeful playing that the assimilation of chess knowledge takes place. Spending hours dishing out chess moves without a ...

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