Albury PCYC kicked off its first ever chess club on Wednesday afternoon for kids aged between 5 and 12.

Last week the PCYC ran a robotics and coding camp.

Albury's Rick Oswald-Sealy said his eight-year-old granddaughter Jessica Browne enjoyed the game, but had been forced to play against him and his friends because she couldn't find anyone her own age interested in playing.

"Jess she loves playing games, she likes to win, and she's taken to the chess and I'm trying to teach her, which I find very difficult," he said.

"To improve your chess you must play and in my opinion it's much better if she's playing people her own age and her own standard.

"I've got to orchestrate things to make it a fair game which I do, so when I saw [the chess club] I thought that's ideal."

Mr Oswald-Sealy said chess had many benefits for Jessica and other children.

"Concentration, development of various thought processes in the brain, the ability to learn from their own actions, particularly if you lose you can see why, and you can improve your self esteem if you win," he said.

"One of the big things, the benefits of chess to me, is that you've got a plan.

"If you can plan the chess game I believe it helps you plan your life to be successful."

He said the chess club would also help her develop new social networks.

Jessica said she'd started playing chess a few years ago, but wanted to keep playing until she was 100 years old.

"I like it all," she said.

"It gets really hard sometimes, but it's always fun.

"I play against Grandpa and sometimes my friend Lisa and that's mainly all."

She said she was excited to play against other children.

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Albury PCYC club manager Shane Walters said the program would create a non-sporting activity for kids in the area.

"I've got about 15 that have asked about it, so I'm hoping to have about 20 kids per session, which gives us 10 games running at a time," he said.

"I've spoken to the chess clubs that are here and they're mainly for the adults and retired generation and some of them meet at like 8.30 at night."

Albury Chess Club's Geoffrey Lindsay said no one from PCYC contacted anyone at their club to find out about children's chess, but their club encouraged younger players to their 7pm meeting on Thursday nights.

"We would be very keen to support any increased opportunities for kids to learn to and play chess within the community," he said.

"We do have a number of young players who attend, here they can either receive tuition from skilled players or play against these players.

"We changed from an 8 to 7pm start early this year to make the times more friendly for young players."

He said Albury Chess Club ran a Sunday afternoon chess club for kids and their parents at Urban Graze Cafe on Deane Street.

"Here they can learn, play against their peers or better players and participate in a monthly competition," he said.

"This is run by a young man from our club who is the current Albury Chess Club Champion."

Details of the Sunday afternoon chess are available on the Albury Chess Club Facebook page.

Mr Walters said the PCYC might host a children verses adults chess tournament in future.

"Adults may think they can play, but when they sit down and play against some kids who know how to play, you can get embarrassed," he said.

"And hopefully I'll be speaking to some schools and see if they're happy for me to come in and do a lunch time chess club to start building up chess in the younger generation."

Mr Lindsay said the Albury Chess Club promotes chess both in the local primary and secondary schools.

"The Chess Club recently ran the local inter-school chess competition that was held at Thurgoona Public School," he said.

"We have also ran the High School competition prior to COVID last year.

"The Chess Club provides an ongoing Trophy for the winners of both the primary and secondary school competitions."

Mr Oswald-Sealy said he thought the kids should be encouraged to play chess.

"It's very sad that in Australia there is so little attention paid to chess, particularly in the schools," he said.

"It's a wonderful game for helping kids to concentrate and develop their mind and abilities.

"It's just overlooked."

The Albury PCYC children's chess club will meet every Wednesday from 4-5pm. For more information contact the PCYC.

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