This might be of use:
https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement
Good luck.
I have no idea where to start.
Sort:
Mar 18, 2021
0
#2
Mar 18, 2021
0
#3
The "winning chess" series is very good... umm... IIRC not all the books got great reviews (you can just read on Amazon) but I still call it a great series because it's giving you tactics, endgames, openings, strategy, etc. All the areas. I typically only recommend the tactics and endgame books, but like I said, read some reviews, there are probably 1 or 2 more that are worth it.
---
I prefer to recommend Pachman's book "Modern Chess Strategy" for strategy.
Other than studying the basic areas, one underrated exercise, IMO, is playing over just 1 or 2 GM games a day... the goal is not to understand every move, because that will only frustrate you. The goal is the same reason an art student will look at master works, or a sports player will watch pro level games... you're getting exposure to high quality material. The point is to pick out 1 thing that's new to you. It could be an opening you've never seen. A tactic, an endgame. Anything. Spend only 10 or so minutes on a game. Don't overthink it.
And it's totally free. You can use free online databases like chessgames.com to pick a player or a tournament, or a world championship match, etc. and then each day just pull up the next 1 or 2 games from the list. If a game is boring, well, sometimes that happens, maybe you'll see something that catches your eye tomorrow. When a game does have something especially interesting, make a note of it. Maybe something like (game 7, white had a surprising attack) and then when you encounter a boring game, just use your list to revisit one you thought was interesting. Sometimes you'll even pick up new things you missed the first time you looked at it.
---
If you study the basic areas (openings, strategy, tactics, endgames) and look at GM games to pick out things that are new and things that you like, then you'll be getting a solid chess education.
Mar 18, 2021
0
#4
OP: All the above is good stuff, but at our level, we are mostly struggling against single-move blunders. I posted this in another thread where a guy asked about getting from 360 to 500:
“At 360 [also 700s or even 900s], your games are dominated by who makes the worst single-move blunders that the other player sees. Strategy comes later; the first thing is to stop throwing away pieces. Your strategy right now should be "don't lose stuff" and "capture their stuff, safely."
“1) Try playing slower games. 30 minute games will give you a lot more time to consider whether you are making a move that loses you a piece. With every move, you should first be asking "Will I lose this piece and get nothing back?"
“2) Always look for, in this order, checks, captures, and threats when you're looking for prospective moves, on the ENTIRE board. Don't just play them. Ask yourself whether they leave you better off than you were.
“3) When you have a move you like, look at what your opponent will see after you move, including checks, captures, and threats. Those are the moves they'll use to force you to do things you don't want to do, or punish a mistake.
“4) Remember that having tunnel vision about the move they just made might distract you from a more important thing happening elsewhere.
“5) Remember that bishops, rooks, and queens can have critical effects from all the way across the board. You need to know where they are and see what they threaten.
“It takes a lot of time and practice to improve this. I'm currently around 900 rapid and my games are still dominated by these problems, but as my score increases, it's to an incrementally lesser degree.”
“At 360 [also 700s or even 900s], your games are dominated by who makes the worst single-move blunders that the other player sees. Strategy comes later; the first thing is to stop throwing away pieces. Your strategy right now should be "don't lose stuff" and "capture their stuff, safely."
“1) Try playing slower games. 30 minute games will give you a lot more time to consider whether you are making a move that loses you a piece. With every move, you should first be asking "Will I lose this piece and get nothing back?"
“2) Always look for, in this order, checks, captures, and threats when you're looking for prospective moves, on the ENTIRE board. Don't just play them. Ask yourself whether they leave you better off than you were.
“3) When you have a move you like, look at what your opponent will see after you move, including checks, captures, and threats. Those are the moves they'll use to force you to do things you don't want to do, or punish a mistake.
“4) Remember that having tunnel vision about the move they just made might distract you from a more important thing happening elsewhere.
“5) Remember that bishops, rooks, and queens can have critical effects from all the way across the board. You need to know where they are and see what they threaten.
“It takes a lot of time and practice to improve this. I'm currently around 900 rapid and my games are still dominated by these problems, but as my score increases, it's to an incrementally lesser degree.”
Mar 18, 2021
0
#5
As for book recommendations, I really love the book 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners. There’s also an interactive version on another chess site I don’t know if I can name here (but cofounded by IM John Bartholomew.)
The tactics puzzles on here are great but they're categorized by crowdsource, so if you want to practice pins you'll have to deal with 20% of the puzzles not actually involving a pin, and people having "double attacks" and "forks" confused.
Tactics puzzles help at the kind of board vision necessary to avoid blundering. Plus. do a lot of them, and you'll find ways to yoink your opponents' queens and rooks that they don't even see coming.
Dear Beck16M,
I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. 
Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.
You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals. You asked for a book recommendation as well... At your level, I would recommend Irving Chernev's Logical Chess Move by Move first (it teaches a lot of principles in the openings and middlegames and you can see some nice attacking ideas as well).
In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.
I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!
Hi Beck,
First of all, you should need to learn chess game rules. Following are the some basic rules to remember before playing chess game.
The chess board consists of 64 squares over 8 horizontal ranks and 8 vertical files.
Every player has 16 chess pieces – one side White, the other Black.
These include pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, and kings.
In total, each side has 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, and a single queen and king.
The pawns are situated on the second rank in front of your other chess pieces. The rooks sit in the corners, next to them the knights, then the bishops.
The queen sits on the square of her own color, and the king stands next to her. (White queen on white square)
Learning the basic rules of chess is surprisingly easy! Most people have seen somebody playing the game of chess or a chess board on TV, or maybe heard some news about the famous chess Grandmasters.
Did you ever want to know how to play this seemingly complicated board game? Are the chess rules a closed book to you? Don’t worry – help is at hand!
In many respects, chess is just like any other game. Before playing a soccer match, you have to learn what an offside is, and once you’ve understood all those rules, they’ll stick with you forever.
It’s the same with chess – you learn the chess rules once and then what used to be a closed book will be open to you all your life. In the following article, we’ll explain the rules of chess you need to understand to start playing chess games yourself!
The Chess Board:
To start, we need to understand the fundamental tool we need to play chess – the chess board. The chess board consists of 64 squares over 8 horizontal ranks and 8 vertical files.
The horizontal ranks are numbered 1 through 8,’ while the vertical files are labeled with the letters ‘a’ to ‘h. A number and a letter (a coordinate) is matched to each of the 64 squares on the chess board.
Chess Board and Chess Pieces
But on this empty chessboard, there is still something essential missing – the chess pieces! Every player has an army of 16 chess pieces – one side White, the other Black – at the beginning of a chess game.
These include pawns (the humble foot soldiers), knights ( jumping pieces inspired by medieval knights on horseback), bishops (which look like a bishop’s hat), rooks (castle-like pieces that represent ancient chariots, or perhaps tanks in modern-day warfare) queens (powerful chess pieces that can dominate the chess board) and the all-important kings, who command their armies but whose loss is the end of the chess game. In total, each side has 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, and a single queen and king.
All the pawns are situated on the second rank in front of your other chess pieces. The rooks sit in the corners, next to them the knights, then the bishops.
The queen sits on the square of her own color, and the king stands next to her. The following image illustrates you the initial position of the chess pieces (see the diagram on the right).
For more detailed guide about how to play chess games from beginner to end you can visit:
https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement
https://fasterapk.com
Thanks,
Mar 19, 2021
0
#8
Learn a basic opening (don't go into much theory) but remember the ideas and try to use them in your game.
Control the center and don't play passively.
Mar 19, 2021
0
#9
https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again
This resource has helped lots of others, so perhaps you will find value in it as well. Plus, using opening principles in chess doesn't require ANY memorization of specific opening lines
Mar 19, 2021
0
#10
KeSetoKaiba wrote:
Plus, using opening principles in chess doesn't require ANY memorization of specific opening lines
Even if you like the idea of memorizing an opening line or two, those principles absolutely come first. (After all, how are you going to know what to do when your opponent plays a line you haven't memorized?)
Mar 19, 2021
0
#11
Paleobotanical wrote:
KeSetoKaiba wrote:
Plus, using opening principles in chess doesn't require ANY memorization of specific opening lines
Even if you like the idea of memorizing an opening line or two, those principles absolutely come first. (After all, how are you going to know what to do when your opponent plays a line you haven't memorized?)
+1 
Mar 19, 2021
0
#12
Lots of good advice given already.
You also need to know what each of the pieces is worth, if you don't already.
Paleobotanical wrote:
KeSetoKaiba wrote:
Plus, using opening principles in chess doesn't require ANY memorization of specific opening lines
Even if you like the idea of memorizing an opening line or two, those principles absolutely come first. (After all, how are you going to know what to do when your opponent plays a line you haven't memorized?)
+1 for all of that.
Opening Principles is what really got me off the ground. Applying them as rigorously and effectively as possible worked wonders for me. Of course, there are always exceptions, when you have to break those principles for a move or two. That said, I've lost count of the amount of games that people simply resign before even reaching middle-game (when all of your pieces are developed and you've connected your rooks). You will not go wrong starting there. Good luck!
Mar 19, 2021
0
#15
I don't know if this is too obvious to mention but anyway since you're already here, https://www.chess.com/lessons
Paleobotanical wrote:
OP: All the above is good stuff, but at our level, we are mostly struggling against single-move blunders. I posted this in another thread where a guy asked about getting from 360 to 500:
“At 360 [also 700s or even 900s], your games are dominated by who makes the worst single-move blunders that the other player sees. Strategy comes later; the first thing is to stop throwing away pieces. Your strategy right now should be "don't lose stuff" and "capture their stuff, safely."
“1) Try playing slower games. 30 minute games will give you a lot more time to consider whether you are making a move that loses you a piece. With every move, you should first be asking "Will I lose this piece and get nothing back?"
“2) Always look for, in this order, checks, captures, and threats when you're looking for prospective moves, on the ENTIRE board. Don't just play them. Ask yourself whether they leave you better off than you were.
“3) When you have a move you like, look at what your opponent will see after you move, including checks, captures, and threats. Those are the moves they'll use to force you to do things you don't want to do, or punish a mistake.
“4) Remember that having tunnel vision about the move they just made might distract you from a more important thing happening elsewhere.
“5) Remember that bishops, rooks, and queens can have critical effects from all the way across the board. You need to know where they are and see what they threaten.
“It takes a lot of time and practice to improve this. I'm currently around 900 rapid and my games are still dominated by these problems, but as my score increases, it's to an incrementally lesser degree.”
“At 360 [also 700s or even 900s], your games are dominated by who makes the worst single-move blunders that the other player sees. Strategy comes later; the first thing is to stop throwing away pieces. Your strategy right now should be "don't lose stuff" and "capture their stuff, safely."
“1) Try playing slower games. 30 minute games will give you a lot more time to consider whether you are making a move that loses you a piece. With every move, you should first be asking "Will I lose this piece and get nothing back?"
“2) Always look for, in this order, checks, captures, and threats when you're looking for prospective moves, on the ENTIRE board. Don't just play them. Ask yourself whether they leave you better off than you were.
“3) When you have a move you like, look at what your opponent will see after you move, including checks, captures, and threats. Those are the moves they'll use to force you to do things you don't want to do, or punish a mistake.
“4) Remember that having tunnel vision about the move they just made might distract you from a more important thing happening elsewhere.
“5) Remember that bishops, rooks, and queens can have critical effects from all the way across the board. You need to know where they are and see what they threaten.
“It takes a lot of time and practice to improve this. I'm currently around 900 rapid and my games are still dominated by these problems, but as my score increases, it's to an incrementally lesser degree.”
I agree, longer time controls are better for newer players. When i first started at 1000 or so, i could not keep up and made so many blunders in fast games. I switched to 15+10 games and learned to not lose so many pieces. Now im rated 1370 rapid.
I think you can get to a relatively good level at chess with surprisingly small amount of theory and study if you focus on the right stuff. I tried to put these in order of importance as tiers, meaning you should focus on the 1st tier until you feel like you're getting really good at it and then move on to the 2nd and 3rd tier. It is actually fairly simple in theoretical level, yet understandably hard to do right as a beginner.
1st tier: Protect your pieces, attack undefended pieces, capture free material
2nd tier: Develop your pieces towards the centre, castle your king, avoid moving the same piece twice in the opening, usually two pawn moves are enough in the opening
3rd tier: Learn basic concepts (outposts, square weaknesses, pawn levers, file and rank play like stacking rooks on open file) and basic tactical motifs (forks, pins, skewers, mating attacks etc.), try to develop harmoniously and get all of your pieces in the game with as few moves as possible
If you can learn all of these, you're already better than most people who play this game. In order to learn it, you need to play slow games and create a correct thinking pattern, so you perform things during a game in the right order:
1. What is my opponent threatening?
This should be the question you should ask after every move they make and at least make sure to see that they're not able to capture any material for free. If any of your pieces is in danger, try to think for a way to avoid losing it for free (or at loss of material).
2. What am I threatening?
If you come to the conclusion, that your opponent is not threatening to win material or checkmate you, you can start looking at your own threats. Am I able to capture anything for free? Is there a way I could attack something that is undefended or increase the amount of attackers so I could take it on the next turn if the opponent doesn't defend it?
3. Have I completed the development? What is my worst piece?
If you come to the conclusion that neither you or your opponent have any real threats or ways to create them, you probably need to develop your forces better. In this case you can start thinking about your pieces and see which are well developed and which are not. As a general rule a piece is well developed if it's near the centre of the board or has a lot of options to move towards. Try to find your worst piece and see if you could somehow make it more useful.
4. Blunder check
Before making the move, make a quick check to see that you're not missing anything obvious and then do the move you chose.
Now these are obviously general guidelines that should help a beginner move forward, and by following them you should get to a reasonable level pretty quickly. After that you'll realize that you still know absolutely nothing about the game and there is endless amount of stuff to learn. But it's pointless to talk about all the other stuff before you can play a reasonable game where you don't give away material for free, you develop fast and towards the centre, get your king to safety and take free material that is presented to you. Once you can do that, it's time to learn the real tactics and strategy of the 64 squares.
Good luck on your chess journey! :-)
Mar 19, 2021
0
#18
@nexim - thank you for a seriously helpful post which I am saving. For humor purposes only I am adapting your checklist to 1 minute bullet (800 rating edition ).
1. What is my opponent threatening?
Who cares? I pre-moved!
2. What am I threatening?
I threaten everything, assuming you will have no time to defend or have likely pre-moved yourself.
3. Have I completed the development? What is my worst piece?
What piece is my mouse closest to?
4. Blunder check
Before making the move, make a quick check of the clock to see if you can can survive any blunder on time.
I highly recommend the chessbrah's new "building habits" series;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRvksIZpGc
Mar 19, 2021
0
#20
Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a chess coach based and chess book author based in California: www.ChessByLauren.com
I have tips to help you improve your chess skills so you can win more games.
I recommend playing with a slow time control, such as game in 30 minutes. You need time to think. Beginners tend to make a lot of silly moves with very little time. This makes sense since there’s a lot of pieces on the board.
I also offer a free beginner’s free eBook on my website, www.ChessByLauren.com in case you are interested. The book is about asking questions before each move.
Before each move, I highly encourage you ask questions before every move such as, “If I move here, is it safe?”, “Can I safely capture a piece?”, and more. If you are past this stage, then you want to find a winning forcing line, so you can get in a winning position. Yes, FIND A FORCING/winning line. Think several moves ahead.
Also consider all checks and captures on your side and also your opponent’s side.
Learn basic tactics such as the fork, discovered attack, pin, and more. I offer interactive puzzles on my website: https://www.chessbylauren.com/two-choice-puzzles.php
If you are serious about chess, I highly recommend you hiring a chess coach to help you.
I hope that this helps.
I am a new Chess Player and I have been searching the internet for ways to properly build on my fundamentals and what study plan and book plan I should follow to ensure that I am not wasting my time and I am building myself as a player properly. If someone could give me some ideas of what areas to work on first and what books to read for this situation that would be fantastic. Thank you.
P.S. I am thinking heavily of just doing Yasser Seirawan's "Winning Chess" course. bad idea or no?