When my brother and I were growing up in the 1960s we used to enjoy watching the tennis at Wimbledon in June, and, excited by this, we’d take our tennis rackets down to the courts at Kneller Gardens and hit a ball around for half an hour. It was fun, but we had no interest in taking it seriously. I was the world’s worst tennis player and my brother had many other interests. Did we gain any lifelong benefits? I suspect not.

A few years earlier I’d had piano lessons: the father of a schoolfriend from further down Selkirk Road was a piano teacher in his spare time. I took it seriously and, like a good boy, practised at home every day. I had very little ability and didn’t get very far, but I was introduced to the names of famous composers and it helped me develop a lifelong love of classical music. Did I gain any lifelong benefits? I’m sure I did.

Learning the piano is essentially non-competitive, so it’s seen as a skill which requires regular practice. Tennis, because it’s a competitive game, can be played at a low level for fun, but you can also take it seriously, try to improve, join clubs and take part in tournaments.

Chess, like tennis, is a competitive game. You can play at a low level for fun, just as my brother and I did when we played tennis, or you can take it seriously because you’d like to join a club and take part in competitions, or perhaps just because you want to get a higher online rating.

If you – or your children – play at a low level for fun, that’s fine, but it won’t provide any long-term intrinsic or extrinsic benefits.

On the other hand, you want your children to gain genuine benefits from chess, they’ll need to take it seriously, to study or practise every day, just as they do if they’re learning the piano. But it’s only going to work if they have a genuine passion for chess – in which case they’ll want to do it every day anyway.

Here at Twickenham Library we can advise you on the right approach for your children. If they want to take the game seriously, we can provide everything you need. But if they just want, at least for the moment, to have low-level fun, they can also do that here: but don’t expect for a moment that it will either make them good players or improve their academic performance.