Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden

“The Steps Method is for chess coaches and kids. It’s a Dutch curriculum, and it’s considered one of the best curriculums in the world. It is maybe a little bit out of date with all the electronic resources that are available, but it’s still very, very good. These workbooks go from complete beginner all the way up to master level. Basically, it’s a set of puzzles. But if you just buy your kid this for Christmas it’s not going to work. The way to get the most out of these books is you need a chess coach or chess teacher to explain the idea and then tell you “look, those are some exercises you can do, go solve them”. The chess teacher marks them and then they can see how you did. I think in the Netherlands, sometimes at chess clubs the coaches hand this out as homework. Some kids love it, they really like that approach. Some kids say, ‘No, this is a workbook, that’s like schoolwork. I’m not doing that.'” Read more...

Best Chess Books for Beginners

Andrew Green, Sportspersons & Sportswriter