I Guess You Have to Start Somewhere

Dear Diary,

Chess seems difficult. Despite the vastly greater computational complexity of go, I think I picked up go faster than I'm managing to learn chess.

Shredder on my iPad thinks I'm 1109 Elo after 13 games. I'm unsure exactly what to think of this. Not sure if I'm doing well or what. After all it's just some computer program, and I have the "blantantly obvious bad move warning" enabled. I think I get a bit impatient when playing the computer and don't think very hard.

I still have a lot of trouble with elementary tactics. I miss checkmate opportunities that seem like they should be obvious.

Have been doing exercises using Chess Mentor and working through the exercises in A World Champion's Guide to Chess. Seems like I still suck at most of the Tactics Trainer problems and my score in Shredder's chess puzzle thing is 30% of maximum points.

Studying openings seems a little pointless. The only thing I really know right now is e4 as white.