Chess Minigames for Enjoyable Learning [pdf]
I don't understand the appeal of chess for the average player. Unless you are advanced (over 2000 elo) there is nothing really "deep" about it. It's like solving simple puzzles and you have to think like a computer, simply evaluating moves and responses. As GM Ben Finegold said, when you show a sub-2000 player what he did wrong he's not surprised; he just didn't see it, didn't calculate it.<p>Yes, if you reach 2000 elo the game becomes very strategic but 99% of people won't reach that due to not being able to play thousands and thousands of games and/or not doing so early enough in their life.<p>Can you play just for fun when you are below 2000? Yes you can but it's not much fun because in most games players will blunder and at that point the game pretty much gets decided; you can blunder at any point, you can never relax, you can never play a move and be confident that you didn't blunder. The constant struggle to be ultra-focused on your calculation quickly wears you down and makes the game tiring and stressful.