Today was our second meeting. We now have a total of six students who are coming in to learn more about chess. I was combing the web for some easy drills that they can try out. One drill that was quite popular was the Rook versus Pawns: randomly place your pawns on the board, rooks start from their proper places, and only the rooks can move and capture. The first person to capture all the opponents pawns wins.

I think this exercise teaches them how to move properly, and of course, to increase the difficulty you can have the rooks capture opponent's rooks. You can do this with bishops (although if one bishop gets captured, it may be the end), and knights. The pawns still remain frozen throughout the exercise.

I also challenged them in some chess puzzles from Ms. Kosteniuk's chess killer tips podcast videos (fun, but can you say 'sultry?'). That too, was beneficial.

Hope this was encouraging for those who are thinking of starting a local chess club. I know the first two meetings have been encouraging for me!

Now to purchase a nice demo board! Any suggestions?