Chess is harder than I thought...

To all, and especially to my opponents:

Thank you for honoring me with your willingness to play chess with me. I only started learning this August, with no previous chess experience either as a child or a teenager. I thought I'd pick it up in no time, but it turns out I was wrong! 

I apologize for all my stupid moves, my illogical trades, and the times when I just didn't see a threat. I try my hardest every game, but I don't want to waste your time. Chess, for me, is like a vertical cliff. I SO want to climb it, because it's FUN and it's THERE. The "chess fire" burns in me, and it burns me up, too! Unfortunately, "knowing how the pieces move" does not constitute enough "gear" with which to climb the chess ladder. Thanks for playing me anyway!

For those of you who haven't played me yet, I hope to when I'm better...

Shakhmaty

You have no reason to be apologizing! Every chess player, including the likes of Kasparov, Anand, Fischer, Tal etc. made  stupid moves, illogical trades, and times when they just didn't see a threat. Good luck in your journey from a player who makes only slightly fewer mistakes.

Chess is something you build up. We'll never be finished with that.

yea, every chess player feels the same way..

This kind of makes me reflect to how I learned the strategies of chess after I learned how the pieces moved.  I first learned basic principles like the value of pieces and opening principles.  I then learned mating with a queen versus king.  I then started playing games and was taught from experience some important ideas.  Keep playing and soon you will make your way up the ladder!

For me, I had to do more than keep playing, because I was doing that for many years and I was at a plateau of... 1100! You need some books too, ideally the really good ones because some aren't so helpful.

This community is quite intriguing: we have people like you (who claim to be weak players but are, in fact, down on the right road to improvement) and we have "the other kind".

Don't worry, mate: a) Kasparov himself said in a given interview every player makes mistakes - you only need to capitalize on your opponent's before he does it on you; and b) as Goldendog said, (un)fortunately you'll be never really through with chess...unless your wife strictly forbids you to play or something like that! You'll always learn something new as you go along.

Finally, one advice that helped me out a whole lot: often your board won't make any sense to you, but if you only keep making good clean moves (i.e. generally working your poorly developed pieces to better squares or making obvious but important threats), more often than not you'll acquire the ability to perceive and encompass the pieces' interaction; by that point (and before you know it), you'll have a plan. So, keep it up! In chess, knowledge builds up in big leaps, just keep the faith.

I can't remember which GM in the world's top 100 it was who said "The better I get, the more I realize how little I know", or something like that. It's true. When I was a beginner beating up on fellow beginners with the 4 move checkmate I felt like a real chess God!  Now I just feel like the average player I know I am.

It sounds like you have a much better attitude than I had, so if you put in the effort there's no reason why you can't improve. And remember that a loss is a positive thing, not a negative! Those are the games in which you learn the most if you remember to analyze every one of them after they've been played, hopefully with a stronger player and/or Engine (chess playing computer).. 

This is my first post here. I played some chess as a freshman in high school like 20 years ago and hadn't played since (maybe a game every six years when a hurricane would knock the power out). Microsoft's Chess Titans has been killing me, on level two. I finally beat it yesterday for the first time on that level (after dropping to level one and winning like four times in a row) but more often than not I'm cringing when I see a rook swoop in out of nowhere and annhilate my queen.

It's intimidating seeing how much I don't know. I picked up Weapons of Chess the other day and understand it so far, but it's been tough to put the concepts into practice. If anyone has any suggestions on a particular book I'm all ears.

Please be gentle if we cross paths. I promise I'm not here to waste anyone's time.

Chess is to be enjoyed.  As long as you are doing that, you have the right idea!

Welcome to the game! :)