Weekly Chess Class Schedule

Join the Academy here, and feel free to ask questions here.

Students typically do one semi-private lesson each week (read about the levels below), plus as many tournaments, bonus lessons, and events as they want. Take a look at the Bonus Activities Calendar here. 

Our small group classes are divided into eight different levels: 

• Pawns: for beginners! 
• Knights: for kids that know how to play but not much strategy yet. 
• Bishops: for kids that know simple checkmates like back rank checkmates and how to checkmate with two rooks. They should also know the piece values and how to make a good trade. 
• Rooks: Kids should know how to checkmate with only their king and queen, they should understand the opening principles, and know how to use tactics like pins and forks. 
• Queens: Kids should know how to use all sorts of tactics like skewers, discoveries, and removing the guard tactics. They should know how to checkmate with only their king and rook, know some basic openings, and know how to defend against the scholars mate. Kids should also have a ChessKid rating over 1000. 
• Kings1: Kids should have a ChessKid rating between 1300 and 1550. 
• Kings2: Kids should have a ChessKid rating over 1550 or a USCF rating over 1000. 
• The Elite Academy: Kids should have a USCF rating over 1400. If they don't have a tournament rating then we'll consider kids with online ratings over 2000. The Elite Academy has two levels: 1400-1800 and 1800-2200.