Impact Chess at Hopewell Valley Library

Today’s event at the Hopewell Branch of the Mercer County Library went amazingly well! Three kids signed up for the event this week, which is pretty good for just my third week with little advertisement. I talked to each of them for a little bit, and learned that they were all complete beginners, so we began with learning how the pieces moved. This took around 30 minutes, and I also tried to teach them some basic concepts such as how checkmate works and the idea of pieces attacking one another. After that, since I was the only instructor there, I had them all play a game against me at once, so they could work together and learn simultaneously. I suggested moves and let them know when moves were illegal, and occasionally would offer up a free piece to see if they would take it. By the end of the game I let them figure out how to checkmate me,. All of the kids seemed to really enjoy today’s lesson, and some other kids around the library came up to me and also expressed interest, so I might have to start a second weekly event to make sure I can teach everyone.

- Lucas Dorsky, Director of Hopewell Operations