I coach chess at the local High School. Membership is checkered because we are always competing for members with other clubs and sports: speech, football, baseball, track, robotics. Places where the students can get a letter. Our meetings are pretty laid back; we work out some chess problems but don't delve into a lot of theory. Some of the students read chess books, others don't.
However, whatever we're doing works because we won our chess tournament today and are now 2-0 this season. Our first match was against the school that I used to teach at and where I helped set up their chess club. It was a pretty even match-up and we ended up winning 4-3-3. The students were pretty happy but a little apprehensive because they had to use clocks for the first time; our club can't afford them.
The meet today was against Wayne and we came out very strong, ultimately winning 6-2-1 (W-D-L). When I used to coach soccer I would have my players work hard at practice and I would then sit back during the games. There was nothing I could yell across the field that would get them to play better or smarter; of course I would talk to the players that had just come off or were just going in but I refused to play Nintendo with my players. I had to hope that the practices would pay off.
It was much more nervewracking watching the chess games today. I was nervous, I was sweaty. The feelings are the same as soccer but since the pace of the game is so much slower the tension was excruciating. I still had to trust my players; trust that they would see the traps, the opportunities, the positions just like we worked on in practice.
You can always tell which student lost a game because invariably their face would be flushed. There is something so personal about losing a game of chess, the embarrasment of not seeing the attack correctly, the frustration of not beating your opponent, that makes watching the already fragile High School ego heartbreaking. The only thing you can say is 'shake it off; work on the next game'.
