Timberdoodle's Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess by ThinkFun Review

 Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess from Thinkfun

I have a super fun item to share with you from Timberdoodle, Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess by ThinkFun!  If you know my family then you know that C especially loves Chess.  In fact, he is taking it for one of his classes in our weekly homeschool CoOp.  I was super excited to get this for him.  Solitaire Chess was invented by Vesa Timonen, a software engineer living in Finland.  This is his second ThinkFun product.

Full Set

The pieces

Here you can see the game/book board is spiral bound and easy to flip to challenges.

So, what does this strategic skill building game come with?  It comes with 10 Chess Pieces (2 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 bishops, 2 knights, 1 king and 1 queen).  It comes with a game book/board that contains 80 challenges at 4 different levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert).  It also has an instructions and solutions pamphlet to guide you.

Here is our set next to C's Chess board.

It can be hard sometimes to find single player games, this is a gem.  Especially for those interested in Chess or learning Chess.  The instruction booklet introduces you to the pieces and how they move.  A pawn moves one square diagonally upward while a rook can move any number of vacant squares vertically or horizontally, etc.

In Solitaire Chess all the pieces are blue (whereas in Chess you have both black and white pieces).  Solitaire Chess is really a logic puzzle that must be solved for each challenge.  The goal of Solitaire Chess is to capture a chess piece with every move you make (this does not happen in Chess) until only one piece remains on the challenge card.  If you are left with two or more pieces on the challenge card, you reset and try again.  If you complete the challenge card with only one piece remaining, you win that challenge!  If you get stuck you can reference the solutions in the instructions and solutions pamphlet (there are solutions for every challenge).  I love that this fast-paced version of Chess will help your child to think critically, analytically and in their decision-making skills in general.  C is very familiar with Chess as he plays it often and he has found Solitaire Chess helpful in thinking strategically and becoming even more familiar with capture moves.  This game is geared for ages 8 to adult.  Check out C's video explanation below.

You can see Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess circled in red in the bottom left corner.

Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess is a part of Timberdoodle's 6th Grade Curriculum Kit and I think that is spot on.  This would be a great addition to your homeschool resources, games and would even make a fun unique gift for that hard to find child.  We are really enjoying having it and C especially likes how it helps improve his Chess skills.  He is a great Chess player!

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  Timberdoodle sent my family Brain Fitness Solitaire Chess for a discounted price in exchange for our honest review.  All opinions are my own.