Introducing Chess Bingō, a new way to enjoy chess, learn the lingo, and (when played with teams) turn up the heat, get competitive, and develop team-building skills.

I created and have used this new bingo format with my chess students as a fun teaching tool, and I’ve tested these scorecards with help from the McMinnville Chess Club with great success.

I’m excited to share them with everyone in the club and beyond. These scorecards are free for personal and chess club use. High quality PDFs are available upon request.

How to play

There are a few different ways to play. You can play Bingo and just try to cross off the squares (so the first to get Bingo wins), which teaches the positions and tactics but encourages making questionable moves just to get Bingo. This can be its own kind of fun, but if you wish you can play both Bingo and good chess and declare a winner if someone both gets Bingo and wins or draws the game.

I designed these scorecards so that it’s theoretically possible to get 4 squares in a row in a single game of chess, which is called a round. The theory behind this is fairly complex, but idea is that it’s simply more fun to get Bingo during a single round. That’s why, for example, “castle queenside” and “castle kingside” aren’t on the same row or diagonal — because you can’t do both in a single game.

Depending on a number of factors, such as your opponent figuring out which squares you’re trying to get, it might not always be possible to get 4 in a row in a round. If the game ends and no one got 4 in a row, just keep your Chess Bingō scorecard, reset the chess board, and start another round until someone gets 4 in a row.

Playing with teams

Chess Bingō can be played between just 2 people, which I do during some of my lessons with my students. It can also be played with teams (I recommend no more than 4 members per team).

Divide your group into two or more teams. For example, with 4 players and 2 chess boards, one team of 2 players sits on one side of the table playing another team of 2 sitting on the other side. Everyone on the same team gets a copy of the same scorecard.

There are 3 different Chess Bingō scorecards to choose from. Just be sure everyone on the same team gets the same one. Teams of 2 players can share the same physical scorecard.

It helps if you have a good mix of beginner and experienced players on each team so that the experienced players can give guidance and answer questions like, “Is this a knight outpost” and “Is this a skewer or a pin?” With teams of 3 players, seat the most experienced player in the middle.

When one member of a team crosses off a square, all members of that team can cross off the same square. This encourages teamwork and uses verbalization and auditory learning to help accelerate learning the names of positions and tactics.

It can also get pretty exciting. I’ve heard “I need a pin!” and “I need a stonewall!” and seen teammates helping one another achieve a pin or stonewall in their game in order for the team to win. Through teamwork and communication, everyone on the same team can work together and cross off yet another square to get 4 in a row.

Notes

• Forks must attack pieces of same or greater value. For example, forking 2 pawns with a bishop or a knight doesn’t count. Forking 2 pawns with a pawn does.
• Stonewalls must be in the center of the board. In other words, the connecting pawn in a stonewall must be on the d-file or e-file. This teaches that stonewalls are a system and not merely a simple pawn formation.
• Some players have discovered that they can’t get any more squares and will abruptly resign just to start a new round. The “opponent resigns” square was added to help deter this. (thanks, Max!).

Chess Bingō is a work in progress. Contact me with your feedback and suggestions!