Kids and MegaChess

Having owned and operated MegaChess for a few years now, I have learned first hand where giant chess sets help kids with chess, and where they don't.

Let's start with the misconceptions where many people think giant chess helps but it really doesn't, and then move to the many places where giant chess can be helpful, but few people realize it.

For a game among experienced chess players, a giant chess set is more an impediment than an aid. The change in spatial relationship between a giant chess set and a regular-size one makes little difference since good chess players keep the game in their heads, not on the board. The chess game is just a way to synchronize what is in the heads of both players. At most, a giant chess set presents such folks a bit of exercise, but after a while, the novelty wears off, and it becomes more of a patio decoration -- a rather fine decoration I might add.

It's not enough to say the US has 7 million kids who play chess, not when we have over 10 times that many who do not. Giant chess addresses those many kids who are left out.

To understand how, ask yourself, "What is the greatest obstacle to a pre-teen beginning a life-long connection to chess?"

If you answered a fragile ego, particularly among boys, you are correct. Few things terrify a grammar schooler more than being shown to be dumb in front of his friends, and worse, where it can't be explained away by bad luck. Chess has a thousand-year tradition of being an indicator of intelligence, and kids are smart enough to know that they will fail the challenge on their first try because the other kid will know the game rules.

This is where giant chess comes in, transforming the battle of brains into chimping around with life-sized action figures. Marketing types call this curb appeal, the ability of a giant chess set to get kids to cross the street, a park, or a school yard to see the giant chess set up close. We call it the "Harry Potter Effect".

Sitting through "The Order of the Phoenix", I was astounded at how Harry could command the silent attention of so many kids by walking in on a giant chess game. At the time, I didn't know how Harry did it, but I knew I was in the presence of an unstoppable marketing machine that knew the inner workings of a child's psyche -- so I paid attention, too.

The answer came to me when I put Harry together with an episode years earlier. My daughter had just taken her Christmas present, a sit-in truck, out of its box. She then piled into the box with her stuffed animal friends, and went for a ride. It soon had cutout windows, and over a period of a week was worn to shreds. The box started out as a truck, soon became a cottage, then a space ship, a tank while shared with her brother, and countless other things. Cast aside, the truck waited patiently for the box to fall apart, because it could only be a truck.

As adults, we lose this profound ability to imagine, to join with the products of our imagination, and to visit the worlds they're part of. The giant cardboard box and Harry's giant chess pieces are tools to empower this imagination. A chess king can be King Arthur, a stone king in Harry's cave, General Patton, the captain of the Starship Enterprise, and many other leaders. And because it is the size of the child, it can be the kid imagining himself to be all these things.

If we take the other giant chess pieces, each one comes with a thousand years of associations to people, things, and places -- each available for imagining. That is why kids are drawn to giant chess sets. It helps them do what they are born to do well, and want to do often.

Consider a walk through Central Park in New York. A man waits patiently behind a chess set for an opponent. Across the way, a giant chess set is set up in the grass. Regardless of how kindly and inviting the man, we know which a kid will choose. As parents, educators, or chess club promoters, that "Harry Potter Effect" is what we can leverage to introduce every kid in the country to chess. That is where giant chess shines.

My favorite moment was watching my son sling a giant bishop under his arm the first day I brought home a giant chess set, and start machine-gunning the opposing pieces -- with sound effects. I pointed out that he can only gun down the pieces on a diagonal from him, and he adjusted his sights. He learned how the rest of the pieces move through similar antics.

Compared to regular-size games, giant chess games often don't conclude to a checkmate. Other kids come up, jostle their way in, and the game is a bubbling community of players, kibitzers, interlopers, and cheerleaders. In the melee, there is no embarrassment asking, "How does this horse move?"

"He jumps over the other pieces," comes the reply, sometimes with the knight slapped between legs and demonstrated.

Set up and parked in a corner, a giant chess set remains a risk-free invitation to the young endowed with more imagination than a desire for intellectual combat. But lying in wait is a sneaky ruse that transforms this imagination into intellectual advancement at every turn.

My finest achievement was the day I caught my son deep in thought with a buddy over our small $5 Walmart chess set. My son apologized for not playing the giant chess game, but he wanted to get into the game and not be annoyed by the chimps who frequent the giant chess set.

That's when I realized the giant chess set was never a destination, but rather a transition, a way to get my kid from where he was to where I wanted him to be. That is also when I founded MegaChess.

Teachers are familiar with studies that show a chess link to analytical thinking, complex planning, and an increase in powers of concentration. Whereas the internet is full of reports of that, here are my three favorite chess benefits for kids that get comparatively little visibility:

Few parents can think of a greater computer scourge nowadays than video games. Not the sex and violence so much as the huge amount of time it robs from everything else.

Victims include books, playing outdoors, family time, homework, and much more, but the most tragic victim may be the imagination I admire most in kids.

Video games present canned simulations where scenarios, weapons, and objectives vary, but the software limits the player to a structure much more limited than the child's imagination. Within those boundaries, a child repeats exercises over and over to gain proficiency, like a mouse gaining experience running a maze.

Of course there are video games that teach, including the historical simulation games like Civilization IV, but we parents look over our kids shoulder, and we know the threat of addiction to a mindless waste of time is real.

So we either maintain our status as the "No" person, or we look for alternatives. With a bit of effort, we look to replace wasted time with time of value. We can pitch a hike in the woods, a chess game, and many other options if we reach back to the imagination we had as kids.

For chess, we need only plant the seed, nurture it a bit, and it will stay with our kids forever -- popping up repeatedly to stimulate minds deadened by video games.

A truism parents know is that our kids will become their friends. That is why we are always on the lookout to engage them with good friends, and to help them become good friends themselves.

A giant chess set sits in the yard or a regular one on the coffee table as a statement that intellectual pursuits are welcome, in fact, are quietly invited.

The chess set attracts a different kind of friend than certain rock band posters. I want Joe Sixpack to feel uncomfortable in our home.

When my daughter finds such an invitation at a play date's home, it's important that she is past the ego threat. I want her to be comfortable asking, "So you play chess, too?"

After she has a family of her own, the chess set will continue to serve as a special kind of decoration, a statement of the kind of friend she likes to sit down with. It will be a symbol of the type of mother, wife, and person she is.

Pop Quiz: What activity does grandpa and his grandson enjoy together?

If you eliminate visits and dinners, which can be more obligatory than fun, a surprisingly short list remains. Junior doesn't like golf, and grandpa doesn't much care for paintball.

If you can't guess the answer, here's some trivia. Far more kids learn chess from their grandfather than their dad. Dad is busy in the fast lane earning a living.

As dinner with grandpa isn't about getting food as much as an excuse to be with him, so too chess isn't so much about playing a game as providing a forum -- a forum where the side chatter can wander to all the topics worth discussing.

Grandpa's wisdom can show a clever chess opening, but also shed some light on life's many other mysteries. Chess converts a series of old-people lectures into the thoughtful banter woven into a chess game.

Inner city teenagers hanging on a street corner, we all know where that leads. As oldsters, we wonder why they can't find something better to do with themselves.

We think of how easy it is for our kids to go out for dinner, spend the weekend in the mountains, or at least whip out a Gameboy. What we don't realize is that those inner city teens are not our privileged kids. They don't have Gameboys. Sometimes, they can't even afford batteries.

What they can always afford is a $5 drug-store chess set. It takes 20 years to wear out and doesn't require batteries.

But chess is much more than just harmless recreation. Because it is an affordable choice for many poor kids, some of them get rather good at it.

Watching a black kid from Compton hold his own in a chess tournament in upscale Orange County is a thrilling sight. The surprise on the faces as the white kid with the straight teeth and tweed jacket lays his king down.

"Checkmate", says the kid from Compton in a voice quiet so as not to offend. But the declaration is as loud as a drum roll, and loud enough to get back to Compton. The leap in self esteem can spread that far.

More important even than Tiger Woods breaking into golf, chess can show inner city teens that they are as smart as anyone, that they too can achieve greatness.