Doubtless there are some four year olds to whom some people could teach chess. However, I'd say that learning chess, beyond how the pieces move, was an extraordinary level of competence for a 4 year old.
I disagree.
You can teach a 4-year-old the moves each chess piece can make, but expecting them to absorb strategy, or to visualise 2+ moves into the future is an unfair burden.
The following are much better perfect information games for kids. I play each with my kids and have listed the age when they were able to strategise 2+ moves ahead:
Perhaps its where I live, or the people I know, but at my kids pre-school, I suspect that few 4 year olds could play naughts and crosses to a draw. I think that sort of awareness started around 5.5-6, where it became more normal.
Gobblet Gobblers -- on a cursory look -- seems to me like a complication on top of naughts and crosses. Namely, adding the ability to mask opponent pieces, and replace existing pieces.
As a side note it seems to me that one could replicate Gobblet Gobblers by using coloured coins of 3 sizes, with the smaller coins trumping the bigger ones thereby implying stacks.
Hive is more complex and less constrained than Onitama (bigger decision space).
We tried Hive when my eldest was 6 and it was beyond them. We tried it again a few years later at 8 and it clicked, has been part of our regular rotation of games since.
