Spotlight: Chess4Life Student Christos Boulis

At Chess4Life we believe that chess has great potential to teach kids life skills. Children can benefit from far more than just enjoying the game by learning to play. Instead of having you take our word for it, we decided to go straight to the kids and see what they think!

This week’s Spotlight features Christos Boulis, a 14-year-old student of Chess4Life. Christos has achieved remarkable chess growth in a short amount of time and has a big goal of achieving Master level before he turns 18.

We asked Christos what benefits he personally has seen from learning the game of chess. Below are a few of the benefits he identified:

Focus

Christos stated that he feels chess has greatly improved his focus. Chess games can be long and require a great deal of sustained focus to be successful. Additionally, exercising the “muscle” of focus is necessary to study and practice to get good at chess.

Christos feels that chess has improved his focus and that this has allowed him to slow down and do a good job with his work in school. He described that he used to rush through tasks but now he takes his time to make sure he is doing it right. That is no longer difficult for Christos because his focus is so strong!

Healthy Habits

Christos identified that learning chess has helped him develop healthy habits. Chess takes discipline, especially if you want to achieve a goal as big as Christos’. Christos has learned how to set aside time and dedicate to practice, even when he might not feel like it. He said that these healthy habits have really helped him with getting work done at school.

Use of Time

Many kids and teenagers in the modern age spend a lot of time on social media. Christos feels that chess is a better use of his time. He said that when he is bored and has nothing to do, he would rather play an online chess game than scroll through social media and he wishes more kids would do the same.

Math Skills

Christos loves math. He feels that learning chess has really benefited his math skills too. Christos stated that he noticed his pattern recognition skills improving as he learned chess. He feels this will one day help him with the SAT.

So there you have it, straight from the source! Helping kids learn chess is about much more than the game itself. Check out Christos’ full interview below, which includes a speed match with Chess4Life founder Elliott Neff!