If your child wants to start learning Chess or if he/she is currently coming to the Learning Table at the Kaurilands School Chess Club, this is a very useful resource.

ChessBase, a large German chess retailer/software developer, have published a series of learning programmes for kids called Fritz & Fertig.  Three of the four programmes have been translated to English (called Fritz & Chesster) and ChessBase have made parts of the first programme available for free online:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/chess-for-kids-online-and-free

I have gone through the sign-up procedure myself and have also been in contact with ChessBase. 

In a nutshell:

· You sign up using an email address only, ignore the “serial number” field, this is only used if a CD has been bought. I use a separate gmail address for this kind of transaction so that my mail email does not get too full.

· ChessBase will create a free 90 days trial account for you, which expires automatically. This gives you access to a number of their Chess websites, not only to Fritz & Chesster.

· You can then start playing - some pages took a little while to load, but that could also have been my internet connection.

· Most of the programme is available for free, up to the point where you go to the “Chess Gym” to train for the game against King Black.

If your child gets to this point and wants to carry on there are two options:

1. You can by the full version from ChessBase (available via download) for around $40 (EUR 24.37).

2. If there is enough interest from Kaurilands kids ChessBase offers a school account for around $7.50 (EUR 4.99) per child per year, to be paid by the parents. I would need to discuss this with Kaurilands School first, if we get to that point.

My personal experiences with these programmes, along with my daughter Anya, are very positive. I downloaded the first one when Anya was in Year 2. The graphics are cute, the games are funny and Anya still plays with all 4 programmes on a regular basis. The only slightly annoying thing is that if you download the games a message about an Audio-CD pops up every now and then, but that can simply be clicked away.