What Beginners Get Wrong About Learning Chess

This post may be interesting primarily to complete beginners, or to those who are just starting their career as chess coaches and want to learn how to do it properly.

The Wrong Approaches

Let’s start with the first point: there shouldn’t be an assumption that by showing a few examples of a certain topic, a student will simply pick it up, get stronger, and start winning. Even more so, you shouldn’t expect their improvement to show up clearly in their rating right after the first or second lesson (or even after a month of studying). IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. And if the rating goes up, it’s usually just a coincidence - not the direct result of a coach’s effort or a magic lesson plan. REAL PROGRESS TAKES TIME, especially for adult students.

Most beginners I’ve worked with have told me things they do that are so fundamentally wrong that no amount of repetition would help - even if they kept doing them for years. These misleading ideas often come from chess forums or YouTube videos - sometimes even from grandmasters. Many think: "If it works for a GM, it should work for me." But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Another common trap is assuming that studying chess works the same way as studying anything else - especially if they’re already super-successful professionals in another field.

Some of my students have been sending me detailed statistics - even though they were rated around 700 on Chess.com at the time. They’d share spreadsheets full of stats about how they scored with White and Black, which openings worked best, which pieces they play better with (in %), and so on. But these stats are COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS.

Then there are those who just type “how to learn chess” into Google, find some course to buy, and jump in. Buying a chess course isn’t necessarily bad - but beginners often end up with opening courses. And that’s a problem. They’ve barely learned how to move the pieces, yet they’re trying to memorize opening lines that MAKE NO SENSE at their level.

It’s frustrating for them - they’re drifting without a clear idea of WHAT or HOW to study. It’s like when I try to study web or graphic design on YouTube. There’s a flood of bad advice and teachers - even though they’re great professionals in their field, they’re not great at teaching it, and I just instantly lose interest to learn.

So let’s create a list of these common mistakes so it’s clear what we’re up against:

These are bad - but popular - ways beginners try to learn chess (especially when they’re rated under 1000):

• • Copying what grandmasters do online.

  • Assuming getting good at chess is the same as getting good at anything else.

  • Over-analyzing stats.

  • Unrealistic expectations.

  • Blindly buying chess courses, especially opening courses.

A Better Mindset

When a beginner is learning chess, EVERYTHING SHOULD BE CLEAR AND EASY TO GRASP. Complicated ideas come later.

The ORDER in which things are taught is incredibly important too. If any of these concepts are introduced in the wrong order, it only creates confusion - which can quickly KILL A STUDENT’S INTEREST in the game.

"You always make it seem so logical and so obvious." - that’s what one of my students told me recently. I strongly believe this is the key to getting to the next level: breaking things down until they feel obvious and self-evident. A good coach can do that, but if we assume that a student is working on their chess alone, they still need clear written guidance.

And since we’ve thrown out all the bad studying habits and ideas, the next step is to focus on how things SHOULD actually be done. I'll keep SIMPLICITY as the main motif when building the ideas of what to do, and I'd like to take all three phases of the game and analyze how to approach them - or which concepts are suitable for the level we’re discussing here: complete beginner. Also, since tactics spread across all those phases and are incredibly important, I’ll add that too.

However, this time I’ll just share a video (watch it here) I recently created on this topic. I’m currently working on improving the clarity of these ideas and will hopefully publish another, improved version soon (followed by another blog post here). Meanwhile, feel free to share your thoughts - or let me know if you think I’ve missed something or got something wrong.