Requirements
1. Discuss with your merit badge counselor the history of
the game of chess. Explain why it is considered a game
of planning and strategy.
2. Discuss with your merit badge counselor the following:
a. The benefits of playing chess, including developing
critical thinking skills, concentration skills, and
decision-making skills, and how these skills can
help you in other areas of your life
b. Sportsmanship and chess etiquette
3. Demonstrate to your counselor that you know each of the
following. Then, using Scouting’s Teaching EDGE*, teach
someone (preferably another Scout) who does not know
how to play chess:
a. The name of each chess piece
b. How to set up a chessboard
c. How each chess piece moves, including castling and
en passant captures
4. Do the following:
a. Demonstrate scorekeeping using the algebraic system
of chess notation.
b. Discuss the differences between the opening, the
middle game, and the endgame.
c. Explain four opening principles.
d. Explain the four rules for castling.
e. On a chessboard, demonstrate a “scholar’s mate” and
a “fool’s mate.”
f. Demonstrate on a chessboard four ways a chess game
can end in a draw.
5. Do the following:
a. Explain four of the following elements of chess strategy:
exploiting weaknesses, force, king safety, pawn structure,
space, tempo, time.
b. Explain any five of these chess tactics: clearance sacrifice,
decoy, discovered attack, double attack, fork, interposing,
overloading, overprotecting, pin, remove the defender,
skewer, zwischenzug.
c. Set up a chessboard with the white king on e1, the
white rooks on a1 and h1, and the black king on e5.
With White to move first, demonstrate how to force
checkmate on the black king.
d. Set up and solve five direct-mate problems provided by
your merit badge counselor.
6. Do ONE of the following:
a. Play at least three games of chess with other Scouts
and/or your merit badge counselor. Replay the games
from your score sheets and discuss with your counselor
how you might have played each game differently.
b. Play in a scholastic (youth) chess tournament and use
your score sheets from that tournament to replay your
games with your merit badge counselor. Discuss with
your counselor how you might have played each
game differently.
c. Organize and run a chess tournament with at least
four players, plus you. Have each competitor play at
least two games.
* You may learn about Scouting’s Teaching EDGE
from your unit leader, another Scout, or
by attending training.
Resources:
Scouting.org Merit Badges - Requirements
boyscouttrail.com Merit Badges