I am relatively new to chess, and I have been taking advantage of the Chess Mentor lessons to try to learn something about this game. My problem is that I don't always understand why one move is better than another. Sometimes it's obvious. For example, you don't want to sacrifice a piece without compensation or you have to move your king out of check, those kinds of things. But other times it seems so arbitrary, and Chess Mentor doesn't always explain the whys and wherefores of a move. I feel I'm never going to get the hang of this game.

Any advice?

Be patient and keep at it! Don't worry your doing what it takes and as u get better the things that u cant understand now, will be understood later.

Its all about just playing the game, anylising where u went wrong, then learning and moving forward. try to predict before you move what your opponant will do next then, try to analyse two moves ahead and so on! Dont worry it all goes wrong for all of us at some stage! A word of advice from chess grand master Nigel Short who comes from my home town, "play everyday against someone better than yourself and you will learn from your mistakes and relish your victories".

Good advice David. I try to play against players with higher ratings (not hard to find since mine is so low). I think I have learned some. 

Laurie

You may be doing it already--use an actual chessboard (OTB) and play as often as possible.  The best opponents for beginners are children (I started as a child); so better to teach them and then play against them.  That way you can play at home and no need to go to chess clubs.  While there are many materials online, from experience it's always better to "study" using a book and use the board.  I hope that makes sense.

Oh sure. In fact, that's what I did when I was in high school: my parents had bought me a couple of books on chess, and I had a board, so that was how I learned then. I actually got to be pretty good. Unfortunately after not playing for many years, I've forgotten most of what I learned then!

Thanks!

Chessmaster has a really good series of explanations to their chess problems. Sometimes things don't make sense until you see how the apply to a position a move or two into the future. Just don't give up. Also use a real board and pieces while working with the program, it will make more sense visually (at least it does for me).

That, too, sounds like good advice. I suppose I should get a chess board. I haven't had one in years.

hello f

the best way to understand a reason is to some one to tell u why

u can ask me ill tell u what my moves mean in our game

and u can use the analyze mode  and try to do both sides moves .. try to win yourself ido the same

Thanks. I do use the analysis board, and it helps some. I hadn't though about mimicking your moves on the analysis board!

One good way to learn is to challenge stronger players here and ask them to play an instructive "take back" game. This will let you discuss moves and take back blunders to try other possibilities.

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Try to have fun while you are learning  

Study some tactics (start with the basic patterns, forks, skewers, batteries, discovered attacs, overloading, deflection and interference.)

Don't worry to much about the opening part, if you think it's fun to learn the name and the first 3-5 move's in many different openings, that is really good!

But if you don't think it's fun, don't worry! Just try to understand and learn the basic opening principles.

Then you could look at some basic endgames, but in the beginning most games are lost and won before the endgame 

Play many games (not at the same time) and try to understand why you lost or won. (yes you gonna win some game too!)

-Feel free to challenge annybody, or just post a game of your's and someone would help you! (if the game is finnishd, it's cheating to help while you are playing)

which lessons and moves in chess mentor don't provide good enough reponses?

Thanks PanaPawn. I've done that with Wyokid quite a bit, and it's helped some. Erik, I've used Chessmentor quite a bit as well, and I think I've learned some from it. I just wish it were a bit more interactive, as far as  explaining why some things should be done or should not be done, that's all. It's not always clear, or maybe I'm just thick-headed.

Great feedback!!

If you find specific lessons that don have as good of feedback as others, please let us know!