Ahedres at Home: A Filipino-American Guide to Teaching Your Child Chess
Ahedres at Home: A Filipino-American Guide to Teaching Your Child Chess
From Eugene Torre's 1974 breakthrough to Wesley So's world-class career, chess runs deep in Filipino blood. Here's how to pass that legacy — and the best two free platforms — to your kids.
It was March 1972. I was five years old, and I saw a chess game for the first time. I don't remember who was playing, but I remember being transfixed — the carved pieces, the silent intensity, the sense that the whole board was alive with intention. Something clicked. I wanted to understand it. I wanted to play it.
Chess fit something in me immediately — my intellect, my competitive nature, the way my mind liked to run several moves ahead of whatever was happening in front of me. Around that same time, Bobby Fischer's face was on the cover of Time magazine at home. The Fischer-Spassky World Championship match had made chess the talk of the world, and the Philippines was no exception. The country loved the game. I loved the game. I played whenever I could.
By Christmas that year, when my Tita Gigi asked what I wanted as a gift, my answer was immediate: a chess set. No hesitation. At home, my Lolo Ming — Emiliano Perseveranda — became my chess buddy. We played together whenever we could.
That's what this guide is: what I wish someone had handed me. Two free platforms — Chess.com and 365chess.com — plus the Filipino chess history that makes the game feel like home. Share this with your kids. Share it with your lola. Ahedres is ours.
The Philippines was the first Asian country in history to produce a Chess Grandmaster. Eugene Torre earned the title in 1974 — predating the chess superpowers of China and India by years. He did it quietly, methodically, brilliantly. Very Pinoy.
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Ahedres — ah-HEH-dres
The Filipino word for chess, borrowed from the Spanish ajedrez — a legacy of colonial history transformed into a national pastime. To call the game ahedres is to claim it as your own.
From Marist to Chicago: My Ahedres Story
My Tito Ed entered me in my first — and only — chess tournament. I was in 2nd grade. The tournament was held at SSS Elementary School, just down the street. I went in not knowing what to expect.
I nearly beat a player who was significantly older than me. Looking back, the field may have been open to students all the way through high school — the age gap was that noticeable. I held my own. And then I found out years later that the player who won the entire tournament was from Section 2B at Marist School. I was in Section 2A. We were classmates in the same building, separated by one room number, and neither of us knew it that day.
The 2B winner had been trained by his father — reportedly a capable player in his own right. He had preparation I didn't have. I can still picture it: 2B's class parading down the hallways of Marist, their classmate carrying a big chess trophy. One hallway. One classroom number. That small.
When I left for Chicago in 1976 at age nine, I left my chess set behind in the Philippines. Here in the U.S., a tita and tito gave me a new one for Christmas. But I didn't have anyone to play with — so I would set up the board and play both sides myself, moving from chair to chair, trying to outthink the version of me sitting on the other side of the table. That is a strange and formative thing: to be your own opponent, to practice competition in silence and isolation. If only I had had the tools that exist today. If only I had had them at ten.
The Golden Age: Philippine Chess Has Deep Roots
Before Chess.com, before YouTube tutorials, before any of it, the Philippines was producing world-class chess talent that the international community could not ignore. The 1970s were the defining decade.
This is the lineage your child can connect to the moment they sit down at a board. They are not learning a hobby. They are entering a tradition.
Wesley So: From Bacoor to the World Stage
If Eugene Torre is the grandfather of Philippine chess, Wesley So is its diaspora ambassador — and his story maps almost exactly onto the Fil-Am experience.
Born in Bacoor, Cavite, So showed prodigious talent early and became one of the Philippines' top players while still a teenager. In 2012, he emigrated to the United States to attend Webster University in Missouri. By 2014, he had transferred his federation affiliation to the U.S. Chess Federation. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2021.
So's trajectory echoes a story Fil-Am families know well: talent that crosses an ocean, identity that doesn't. He is American by citizenship and Filipino by everything else. When our kids learn chess, Wesley So is the proof that someone who looks like them — who grew up in a barangay in Cavite — can compete at the highest level in the world.
The Filipino Chess Connections (TFCC), a prominent diaspora organization, is actively working to honor this legacy by uniting the global Filipino chess community through tournaments and training — building what they describe as a sustainable environment for players abroad.
Your Digital Chess Toolkit — Platform One: Chess.com
♟️ Chess.com — The Interactive Learning Engine
Best for: Beginners, children, daily practice, and structured lessons.
- Safe Mode / ChessKid: Create a sub-account for your child and toggle "Safe Mode" to disable all external chat. The ChessKid ecosystem runs inside Chess.com and gives younger players a protected rating pool, curated video lessons, and low-stakes bot opponents. Security is the first move.
- Lessons module (chess.com/lessons): Structured curriculum that walks players through openings, tactics, endgames, and strategy. Gamified enough to hold a child's attention; deep enough to be genuinely educational.
- Bot opponents: Characters like Mittens and Lil' Onion offer a low-pressure environment to lose — and losing without embarrassment is how children learn to try again.
- Puzzles: Daily tactical puzzles are excellent for building pattern recognition, which is the foundation of strong chess intuition.
I grew up playing both sides of the board against myself, moving pieces one chair at a time, trying to imagine what my opponent was thinking. Chess.com eliminates that problem entirely. Your child gets an adaptive opponent, immediate feedback, and a learning path — all things I had to build in my own head in that Chicago apartment.
Your Digital Chess Toolkit — Platform Two: 365chess.com
📖 365chess.com — The Opening Database and History Archive
Best for: Parental preparation, opening study, and connecting your child to Filipino chess history.
- Opening Explorer: A massive database of grandmaster games organized by opening variation. Search for a specific line — say, the Sicilian Defense — and see how the world's best have played it at every level.
- Player search — Eugene Torre and Wesley So: This is the Pinoy Pride power move. Search for Torre's or So's archived games and walk through actual moves with your child. Explain: This is a Filipino player. This is our lineage. Watch how he thinks.
- No account required: 365chess.com is free and requires no registration. Open a browser tab and start exploring.
- Research tool for parents: Use it to prepare before a lesson — study a few moves ahead so you can guide your child through what the board is actually doing.
The Hybrid Workflow: Teaching Your Fil-Am Child
The most effective approach combines both platforms with the cultural context that makes the game meaningful. Here is the session structure that works:
Why This Matters Beyond the Board
Chess teaches patience, consequence, and long-range planning — values that map directly onto the resilience Filipino immigrants and their children have had to cultivate simply to survive and thrive in this country. The game is not an escape from that reality. It is a training ground for it.
When I sat alone in Chicago at age nine or ten, playing both sides of the board against myself, I wasn't just passing time. I was practicing how to think ahead, how to adapt, how to stay composed when the position looked bad. I didn't know it then. I know it now.
Give your child what I didn't have: the tools, the context, and the story. Eugene Torre sat across from the world champion and won. Wesley So crossed an ocean and became one of the seven best players on earth. Your kid is next in a lineage. Let them know it.
• Chess.com — Wesley So Player Profile
• Wikipedia — Wesley So
• Wikipedia — Professional Chess Association of the Philippines (PCAP)
• Manila Times — Filipino Chess Connections: Building a Global Community (April 2026)
• World Chess — Best Chess App for Kids
• 365chess.com — Opening Database and Explorer
• Chess.com — Interactive Learning Platform
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FOUNDER & EDITOR
J.F.R. Perseveranda
J.F. (Jonjo) left the Philippines at age nine, spending a lifetime bridging the gap between his Marikina roots and his Chicago/Vallejo upbringing. A proud Hogan Spartan from East Vallejo and resident of LA/SF, he founded PinoyBuilt not just as a digital archive, but as a cultural compass for his three children to navigate their heritage, language, and identity with Pinoy Pride.
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