Group class syllabus: 12 weeks
One topic a week. Each class: a short lesson on the shared board, puzzles every student solves on their own board, then friendly games against classmates. Students repeat ideas often; a new student can join in any week.
- Week 1: How the pieces move. Set up the board, how each piece moves and captures, and the goal of the game: checkmate.
- Week 2: Pawn promotion. A pawn that reaches the last row becomes a queen (or another piece), and how to make it happen in a game.
- Week 3: Back-rank checkmate. Spot a king trapped behind its own pawns, and how to keep your own king safe from it.
- Week 4: Basic mating patterns. Checkmate with queen and king, two rooks (the ladder), on the edge, and the smothered mate.
- Week 5: Forks. One piece attacking two at once, starting with the knight fork.
- Week 6: Pins. A piece that can’t move without exposing a more valuable piece behind it.
- Week 7: Skewers. Attack a valuable piece so that the one behind it falls when it moves.
- Week 8: Free pieces. Before every move: is anything left undefended, theirs or yours?
- Week 9: Discovered attacks. Move one piece to uncover an attack by another.
- Week 10: Checkmate in 2. Plan two moves ahead: a forcing check, the only reply, then mate.
- Week 11: First openings. Control the center, develop knights and bishops, castle early: the Italian Game, Ruy Lopez, Queen’s Gambit, London System and Sicilian Defense.
- Week 12: Must-know endgames. Checkmate with king and queen or king and rook, win with king and pawn, and the “square” of a passed pawn.
Puzzles come from the Lichess puzzle database (free to use, CC0) and from our own lessons; every solution is checked move by move with a chess rules engine before it is used in class.