Spectators must be passive and silent while any game is in process.

Spectators should stand or sit well away from the players and make no gestures of recognition; even a nod of the head could be misconstrued as approving a position or a move.

Due to the virtual nature of this tournament, spectators must be supervised by the on-site chess coach.

Unlike a traditional tournament, talk is encouraged between the team (up to four players) to decide upon their chess move. Each team should designate a captain of their team. It is the role of the captain to coordinate the communication of the team.  Individual Roles on each Team during live matches:

• Coding Lead: Oversight of the code and makes changes as needed/desired.
• Chess Lead (usually the strongest chess player on the team). Decides & plays the chess moves.
• Logistics Lead: inputs the chess moves into the software (on chesskid.com) and transfers opponent’s moves onto the physical board
• Captain: ensures all functions are working smoothly & handles any communication to opponent’s team captain, fills out team scorecard

Coach: Observes, ensures fair play, refrains from ANY coaching

You must know the basic rules of chess. You can find copies of the rules with the instructions that come with chess sets, in books on chess, on the internet, or in encyclopedias. The rules that cause the most trouble for new players are castling, en passant capture, pawn promotion, and drawn games. 

FREE Rules of Chess Guide (with linked videos) (great way to learn the game as each rule includes fun mini-games to reinforce learning the basics)

For basic gameplay: 

• https://www.chesskid.com/login (free signup)
• https://www.chess.com/lessons (no account needed for beginner lessons)

Chess notation (recording moves): 

• https://www.chesskid.com/videos/how-to-keep-score-algebraic-notation
• https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-notation

Learning about Coding:   https://scratch.mit.edu (explore tutorials that involve movement of characters)

Due to the nature of play, scoring for Kai’s Chess Challenge will be much different than the usual scoring used in a chess tournament. Consider the following scoring system as you practice for your chess matches.

At the end of each chess game, you will complete the scoring section (Kai’s Chess Challenge Score Sheet) on the  ‘Kai’s Chess Challenge Move Record’. For middle and high school divisions, you will also need to record your cumulative score for all games played. Your team will get points for all of your opponent’s pieces that you capture. The following guides will be used for scoring:

• Castling – 10 points
• Moving all pieces from the back row at least once – 10 points
• Capturing 4 different pieces (pawn, bishop, knight, rook, queen) – 10 points
• Winning Team (checkmate, opponent gives up/Resigns, or wins on time) – 20 additional points

The committee will then allocate points up to 20 points for design and 30 points for coding and animations. See the ‘Final submission’ for requirements.

The following guides will be used for the score:

Teams and team members can only code their own chess pieces and add animations, effects, robot avatars to their own pieces.

All conditional logic coding statements have to be within their own chess moves and can’t interfere with their opponents, design, characters, code, or animations. Any team that breaches these rules will automatically be disqualified.

Each coach/teacher registers their own teacher account at app.kaisclan.ai for practicing purposes. They can set up both black and white sides to practice. On the day of the tournament, the black team will be the teacher account and the white team will join as all student accounts.