Scholars mate in tournament?

Hi guys,

Both my 6 years old son and I are beginners, we know how each piece moves, and a little about opening.  My son wants to go into a kids tournament and play, I teached him scholars mate because there are only 4 moves and it is easy to learn.  Also I want him to at least have a chance to win 1 game out of 6 in the tournament so it is not a total defeats.  I read some YouTube commentary saying that it is a un-sportsman move.  

I also tried this move on around 6 players with ranking around 700 at chess.com and non of them fall for it.  

Should my son and I just learn some basic opening and hope that he will do play ok instead of relying on a such a move? I just want him to have some fun and losing straight 6 games are no fun (to me anyway)

edited to remove bad words

I would advise showing them this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kURU67G98O8

If they only know scholars mate then if the opponent counters they will be lost because they wont know anything else

I had a scholars mate in a tournament here. I never really try to but if the opponent makes some random move I use the bishops opening. Another random move I bring the queen out

I would advise showing them this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kURU67G98O8

If they only know scholars mate then if the opponent counters they will be lost because they wont know anything else

Cool, I think that video is very useful

Name should be changed to the dick mate lol

Scholar's mate is garbage chess.

At 6 years old, you basically just pushwood until your opponent hangs a mate. 

Bobby Fischer teaches chess is a great book for your son, since it teaches by example. You can set up the board and just have him go through it.

"How to beat your dad at chess" is an endgame book, but winning for your son is basically going to be about identifying when your opponent hangs mate, it's worth the time to learn mating patterns. 

I would do that, and also use tactics on chess.com for "hanging pieces" and help him identify when his opponent hangs a piece.

Maybe he should learn the London System. Chess.com have 2 great video series One by Simon Williams and one by Aman Hambleton. The London system basically helped me get from 1000 to 1500.

It's okay to teach the Scholar's Mate to beginners, so that they can defend against it.  But the Scholar's Mate succeeds only against absolute beginners, so it is hopeless as a general strategy.  Instead, beginners should rely on the general principles: center control, pawn structure,  development, king safety, tactics, endgames, etc.  There are no shortcuts when learning something as complex as chess.

Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a chess coach and chess book author based in California: www.ChessByLauren.com.  I teach chess to kids, so here's my suggestions: 

  I'm glad that your son knows Scholar's mate!  I would also teach him to control the center. He needs to ask basic questions before each move, such as "If I move here, is it safe?".   He needs to consider all checks and captures.  

Use this lesson

https://www.chess.com/lessons/opening-principles

Thanks for all the suggestions, greatly appreciated.

Alguém escreve em português?

When I first started playing chess I "discovered" Scholar's Mate on my own and used it regularly.  It brought me a number of wins over 400 strength players since I didn't really know any openings.  I made it to about 900 strength in spite of using Scholar's Mate, not because of it.  If a person starts with Scholar's Mate they need to know enough tactics and general strategic ideas to be able to recover when (not if) the opponent counters it.  If they learn enough to recover from it being countered then they know enough that they don't have to play it in the first place.

as a 2100 rated blitz player I would say, tell your son to play an opening like this

and just start devloping pieces, this is bad chess at the higher level but I think it will be succesful with it.

Language and also teach him an opening system, like the London.

The kid barely knows how the pieces move, and you'd teach him--- openings? Facepalm. What a complete waste of time that would be.

The OP said that his kid knows how the pieces move so...

Teach him how to defend againt scholar's mate and he will

1. Learn why scolar's mate is bad to do

2. Win more points by defending against it than doing it

There's nothing wrong about scholar's mate. The only key thing to remember here is that there's the half dozen or so of the textbook version of scholar's mate that's delivered from Wayward Queen Opening, and then there's an infinite number of mating patterns that looks very much like Scholar's mate, except the rest of the board are much messier.

The textbook scholar's mate where you start with Wayward Queen Attack is a solved problem; anyone who plays chess a bit would know how to deal with this opening. But then there's using the general idea of delivering a checkmate on the King-side Bishop's pawn. This class of mates doesn't have to start with Scholar's mate opening (Wayward Queen opening). Many openings where you put your Bishop on the right diagonal have an opportunity to deliver this mate. Recently, I delivered Scholar's mate from a game that starts with an Evan's Gambit opening, and I've delivered Scholar's mate as Black many times.Scholar's mate works any time neither King and Queen has moved from their initial position, and there's a clear line of sight across the pawn's rank. Since basic chess opening principles says you should not bring out the Queen too early and that casting is encouraged, there's a fairly large window of opportunity that you can deliver this mate in early game or even throughout mid game if your opponent doesn't castle.

Probably about a third of my games are finished with variants of scholar's mate, most of it not opening Wayward, and another third are Bishop-Queen battery aimed on castled King. Then there's a small slice for a variety of backrank mates followed by a hopscotch of everything else.

There's a point that you shouldn't rely on knowing just Scholar's mate though. Once the King castles or the Queen moves, you've lost the opportunity for a Scholar's mate, so you do need to know other mating patterns in case the game goes in that direction.