What to expect in the book

Howdy! It's the Chess Friends! In our book, we will answer your most frequently asked questions about chess tournaments, organized into three phases: Before the Tournament, During the Tournament, and After the Tournament. We will also have a little friend throughout the book and training puzzles with haiku hints to help you on your journey. An example of each are shown below. Enjoy!

Does playing chess make you smarter?

There are many academic studies that show that chess helps a great deal with academic achievement, particularly in STEAM fields, like math. Chess also helps you navigate emotions: how to win graciously, how to process the loss, and how to reflect and bounce back. It helps with pattern recognition, strategy, tactics, planning, making decisions under uncertainty, focus, spatial reasoning, as well as patience, calm, making friends, etc. It also helps tremendously with memory. It’s also an area where you get to interact with people from all over the world, of all ages, from all walks of life, so it can help you get comfortable with everyone over fun, shared experiences.

Puzzle time!

Dubious Knight move.

Do you see the win for White?

This is Scholar’s Mate.

Over the next several blog posts, we will share more about our creative process, including further examples of questions and answers in the book, our little friend, and haiku puzzles. Any suggestions for what we should name our pawn friend? Leave your answers in the comments below or email us at chessfriendsbooks@gmail.com.

Three Cheers, Fellow Future Master Chess Friends!

Benji, Sarang, and Vivaan