Well, a week later, with the same scenario, he says, 'You have to teach me how to play chess.' So, here we are 4-5 months later and with just some instruction for an hour or two, 1-2 days a week, he can really play chess, but not just that- he can also play it by himself on the Radio Shack Partner 1680X cat. 60-2428A (not to be confused with the 60-2428).
He knows how each of the pieces move (of course), how to castle, the concept of an opening (very basic mind you- king's pawn opening etc.), the concepts of moving the minor pieces out early, controlling the center, not bringing the queen out too early and pawn promotion. When it comes to operating the chess computer, he has mastered making the computer's moves which means understanding coordinates which is not an easy concept for this age-group. He also had to learn how to verify piece positions because a four year old moves around a lot and pieces sometimes go flying.
I must admit, I'm still rather amazed at his progress and never expected anything close to this. Of course, he's still fairly early in learning tactics, but he has already surprised me by making moves based on looking 3 moves ahead. Incidentally, the above mentioned chess board works very well for this purpose (eg. beginner levels A1 and A2). It gives the beginning player the opportunity to actually use pins, forks and so on.
A number of the other boards I tried would dumb down their moves at beginner levels, but would make too many silly mistakes that a player is less likely to see in the real chess world. Boards with this form-factor are also particularly good for younger children because they have both the LEDs and an LCD, plus they are sturdily built and can withstand a fair amount of punishment.
I get a kick out of this picture with matchbox cars juxtaposed against a kid playing chess:
In another thread I posted, I talked about painting gold pieces as part of a Christmas gift. Well, now you know who it's for.
http://www.hiarcs.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6451