Grand Master coaches as he beats the lot

Grand Master coaches as he beats the lot
40 games of chess simultaneously
LEE MATTHEWS
Last updated 13:26 11/02/2012

Your brains would boil watching New Zealand chess correspondence Grand Master Mark Noble play 40 games simultaneously.

Noble, though, doesn’t turn a hair. He’s at Feilding Intermediate School, strolling round a classroom set up with 40 chessboards and 40 11 and 12-year-old opponents.

He’s averaging a move every three seconds. Quick glance at the board, down pounces the hand on the black piece of his choice, a groan from the opposing child, and another white-piece victim is stacked at Noble’s end of the board.

“Bishops move diagonally, remember?” He’s coaching as he goes.

Noble spent Friday morning playing 128 games of chess against the students, 40 minutes per game session. He played 40 simultaneously in round one, 42 in round two, and 46 in round three. He won every game and didn’t break a sweat.

“One or two made me rethink. But mostly these are learners. They open as white players, you have an immense advantage playing white in chess. I set up the defence I’m going to play, I know the next moves I’m going to make. What was interesting was that a number of the children saw the patterns of the trap … [and] saw what I was doing.”

Feilding Intermediate School principal Stu Trembath’s goal is getting children thinking and problem solving, and he said chess is one of the best brain builders he’s seen.

Last year, the school’s chess club had about 20 members; average for a school with a roll of about 300. And year eight teacher Simon Tipping said chess then had the sad reputation of being only for the brainboxes.

“Stu and I got talking about problem solving, and the way chess develops the mind. He found some research that proved it had worked in other schools, so we asked Mark to come in and help us.”

Noble is New Zealand’s top correspondence chess player and a Fide Master in face-to-face chess, in the top five nationally. He taught the children how the pieces move, and the starting points of strategy.

Mr Tipping said he could see the results already in the classroom; chess players had longer attention spans, their problem-solving strategies had improved, and confidence was growing.

The school’s club now has 128 signed-up members.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz