I have so many fond memories from the years I ran the Fremont Summer Chess Camps at Mission San Jose Elementary School. Connecting hundreds of talented kids with the best chess teachers was an incredible experience for everyone involved. These camps helped take scholastic chess to new heights in Fremont, California and helped me develop the approach that I now use in my Free Online Summer Chess Camps.
Of course I played plenty of offhand chess games with the children at the summer chess camp and many of these I would either play at time odds or with a material handicap. It’s educational for chess coaches to play training games with their students and playing with a handicap to even the playing field adds an extra level of fun to these matches. Spotting material also creates new possibilities as pieces you might normally deploy in an opening may not be available while other pieces that are normally blocked in the early going can actually develop faster.
Below is typical example of the games I played “at odds” during summer chess camps. To avoid exchanging down to a bad endgame, I employ a hyper-aggressive strategy and capitalize on my opponent’s mistakes. Beyond the lesson in odds giving, the opening line I chose (1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Neg5 h6 6.Nxf7 Kxf7) may be of interest to those of you who are looking to attack the Caro-Kann Defence with gusto. Enjoy…
[Event “Fremont Summer Chess Camp”]
[Site “Mission San Jose Elementary School”]
[Date “2014.07.17”]
[Round “7 points down”]
[White “Chris Torres”]
[Black “Jeffrey”]
[Result “1-0”]
[FEN “rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/2PPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq -“]
1.e4 c6 2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Neg5 h6 6.Nxf7 Kxf7 7.Ne5+ Ke8 8.Bd3
e6 9.Bg6+ Ke7 10.Ba3+ Qd6 11.Bxd6+ Kxd6 12.Nf7+ Ke7 13.Nxh8 Nbd7 14.Nf7 a5
15.O-O b5 16.Qa1 c5 17.Rb1 b4 18.d4 Bb7 19.dxc5 Nxc5 20.Qd4 Ncd7 21.Qd6+ Ke8
22.Ng5+ Kd8 23.Nxe6+ Kc8 24.Qc7#
1-0