Quote Originally Posted by lenssideways8 View Post
1) партию в шахматы translates as "a game of chess" I think? Wondering if this is some special use of в I am unaware of. I thought "a game of chess" would be партию шахмат using the genitive so I am unclear on that.
The preposition в (+accusative) is used with the verb играть ‘to play’ before the name of the game:
игра́ть в ша́хматы ‘play chess’
игра́ть в футбо́л ‘play football’
игра́ть в пря́тки ‘play hide-and-seek’

With musical instruments, на (+prep.) is used instead:
игра́ть на гита́ре ‘play guitar’
игра́ть на скри́пке ‘play violin’

Quote Originally Posted by lenssideways8 View Post
2) до того is "until that time" or "until that point" or something like that I think?
You’re right.

Quote Originally Posted by lenssideways8 View Post
3) I know как has a lot of different uses. Here I'm not sure what it is. Is it "as Andre came in"?
Yes. Как пришёл Андрей here means something like ‘the event of Andrey’s coming’.
In English one can say e.g. ‘I saw you leaving the house’.
In Russian you cannot use a participle here (technically, you can, but it wouldn’t sound natural). Instead, you can say «Я ви́дел, как ты вы́шел из до́ма», literally, ‘I saw as you left the house’.

Quote Originally Posted by lenssideways8 View Post
When we arrived in class, the teacher had already gone home. We had plenty of time to play a game of chess before Andre arrived.
Correct. Well done!