Round 3 Continues
Teach students to finish a game they are winning. By now several have been up a queen and drawn or lost anyway, and they know it.
You have watched at least one student this tournament win a queen and then fail to convert it. Bring that up, without naming anyone, because everybody in the room has either done it or watched it.
Winning a piece is the easy part. Finishing the game is the hard part, and this is where tournaments are actually decided. When you get ahead, three things change about how you should play.
- Get safe first. Stop attacking. Check that nothing of yours is hanging. A player who is up a rook and gets checkmated has learned this the expensive way.
- Trade pieces, not pawns. Every trade makes your extra material a bigger share of what is left on the board.
- Steer for a mate you actually know. The ladder mate from Week 10 needs only two rooks and no help from your king. Aim for that.
- Give the lone king a square until the moment of checkmate, or you will stalemate them and throw away the win.
Convert it
Set up king and two rooks against a lone king on every board. Give the attacking player two minutes on a clock. Can they ladder-mate before the flag falls? Then swap. This is deliberate practice of the exact skill that decides the next three rounds, and it is a game, so they enjoy it.
Finish round three and pair round four. At any board where a student is clearly winning, ask one question and leave: "You are ahead. What is your plan to finish?"
This is the point in the tournament where the fifty-move rule and threefold repetition start to matter, and both were taught in Week 11. If a winning player is shuffling aimlessly, remind their opponent, quietly, that they are allowed to claim.