Printables
Print the contract before Session 0 and the ladder before Session 1. The rest can wait. Use your browser's print command on this page and everything below comes out clean, one sheet per page, with the site navigation stripped out. Laminate the ladder so names can move with a dry erase marker.
The four blank decisions on the contract are deliberate. Do not fill them in before Session 0. A contract that arrives already written is a rule sheet, and the club will treat it like one.
Chess Club Contract
How we treat each other
- Quiet voices. Chess is a thinking game and everyone needs room to think.
- We treat our opponent and their pieces with care.
- We do not argue. We pause, we check, we play on.
- We help each other, including our opponents.
- We do not celebrate winning and we do not treat losing as a problem. We celebrate playing correctly and helping someone else play correctly.
- No food at the boards.
What this club decided
1. Clocks. Do we use them, when, and at what time control?
2. Notation. Do we write our games down, and for which games?
3. Disagreements. What do we do the moment two players disagree?
4. Who plays whom. How does the ladder work, and how far up can we challenge?
Signed
New members sign when they join. We read this out loud at the start of every cycle, and we amend it whenever it stops describing what we actually do.
The Ladder
- You may challenge anyone up to three spots above you.
- Win and you take their spot. Everyone in between slides down one.
- Lose and nothing moves. A draw counts as a loss for the ladder.
- You cannot refuse a challenge.
- You cannot play the same person twice in a row.
- Fill out a results slip before you move any name.
- Move your own names. The guide does not move names.
| Spot | Name | Games |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||
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| 20 |
New graduates from Learn to Play join at the bottom. Their first two games are played with a Helper watching.
Results Slips
Result: White won / Black won / Draw
Ladder game? Yes / No Tournament round: ______
Initials: White ________ Black ________
Result: White won / Black won / Draw
Ladder game? Yes / No Tournament round: ______
Initials: White ________ Black ________
Result: White won / Black won / Draw
Ladder game? Yes / No Tournament round: ______
Initials: White ________ Black ________
Result: White won / Black won / Draw
Ladder game? Yes / No Tournament round: ______
Initials: White ________ Black ________
Role Cards
You do not play a game today. You run the room.
- Circulate. Watch boards, do not sit.
- Answer rule questions. Check the wall if you are unsure.
- Settle disagreements using the contract. Say it once, briefly, then walk away.
- Sit with any new graduate playing one of their first two ladder games.
- Interrupt the guide only for: injury, real conflict, or a question the wall and you could not answer.
You own the shape of the session. Four calls, loud enough for the whole room.
- "Boards up." At the start.
- "Huddle." Three minutes in.
- "Four minutes." The reset warning.
- "Pieces home." The end. Nothing happens after this.
Two of you. Before and after.
- Boards out and set up before the session starts.
- Results slips into the box.
- Ladder updated to match the slips.
- Challenge board refreshed if a card was completed.
- Everything away, and count the pieces.
Challenge Cards
The full stack of fourteen is written out on the mini-lesson library page. Copy three onto blank cards at a time, or print that page and cut the cards apart. Blank cards below for challenges the club invents, which are usually the best ones.