Square One

Square One starts at the very beginning: no chess knowledge is needed. It is the starter book of The Eight Ranks Method™, a chess curriculum in eight ranks for learners from age six to adult, and it comes before the White Belt. It is not a rank and has no Rank Day; it ends with the Ready for the White Belt checklist.

What the twelve short chapters teach: the board, its files, ranks and diagonals; setting up the pieces; how the rook, bishop, queen, king, knight and pawn move; capturing and the value of the pieces; check, checkmate and stalemate; castling, en passant and promotion; how a game is won, lost or drawn under the official Laws of Chess; writing a game down and keeping a scoresheet; fair play, touch-move, the clock and the four courtesies; first plans and two checkmates to know; and a short history of chess, from chaturanga to the computer age.

Inside this book: 30 Try-it questions, with answers; 32 practice positions, every answer solved by computer from the rules; 64 full-colour diagrams and 2 photographs of the pieces and the starting position; a glossary of the words a beginner hears; a six-session plan for the adult or instructor who teaches alongside; the Ready for the White Belt checklist.

Every position in this book is a legal position checked by computer, and every practice answer is completely solved. Written by Moheb Girgis, FIDE National Instructor: forty years of play, and a BSc in Biology, Chemistry and Botany. The method is designed to produce evidence aligned to the six attributes of the New York State Portrait of a Graduate.

Not issued, approved or endorsed by the New York State Education Department or any school district. Schools decide how to use its reports.