Checkmate, Mon Ami

By Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2004

Capturing kings, holding bishops hostage, and castling is what it's all about on the user-friendly Web site InstantChess.com. There, kids, from beginners to masters, can play chess online and chat with players from all over the world. Based in Moscow, the site is essentially an international chess club, boasting members from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In honor of International World Peace Day (September 21), InstantChess is offering free memberships to all school chess clubs—from middle schools to universities—for the 2004–2005 academic year. (To register, go to www.instantchess.com/school and click on "special offer.")

"If kids start to participate in InstantChess, they will see it's a small world," says the site's educational director Mark Benthall, a fifth-grade teacher at Lake Travis Elementary School in Austin, TX. Indeed, Andrey Matveev, the site's Russian-born chief executive officer, founded InstantChess to bring kids together over a game of chess. He believes the site can even contribute to world peace.

Members are encouraged to use the site's "club forum," a chat room, where they can not only explain chess moves, but talk sports, politics, school—anything at all. And it's monitored. If players type in an inappropriate message, they will lose their membership and access to the site. Benthall's middle school has already signed up. His students enjoy learning about foreign kids' lives just as much as a game of speed chess. Meanwhile, chess is a tough teacher, testing math and reading skills, and demanding that players improve their organizational and decision-making processes to excel.

"[Chess] teaches that there are consequences to your actions," Benthall notes. "That certainly transfers to life."