Master "basic" tactics.
There have been many books on the subject. I think that "Chess Tactics for Champions" by Susan Polgar is outstanding.Then you should learn common middlegame , and opening, checkmates. "The Art of Checkmate" by Georges Renaud and Victor Kahn is the old classic text on that subject.
Then you should practice a lot. You have a choice of the ChessOK software, "Chess Tactics for Beginners", "Intermediate Chess Tactics" and "CT-Art", or more ChessBase Renko CDs. The ChessOk CDs get rave reviews by people who seem never to have actually gone through them, as no one ever mentions any of their errors and other shortcomings, while the ChessBase CDs get ignored. I like the ChessBase Renko CDs much better. I would suggest that you start with "The Great ABC of Tactics", and "Intensive Course Tactics I" and "Intensive Course Tactics II". If you get to the point where you can solve all of those exercises fairly quickly, you will be considered to be quite a marvel in most chess clubs.
Hello all, i started playing chess a few months ago and it became my passion. Today im rated somewhere around 1400 and im looking to raise that number to somewhere around 1800. what would you recommend me to do ?? what books could i use ?? and what softwares could be of use to me ??