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Everyone’s first chess workbook by Peter Gianattos

@Logando2805 I'd recommend a puzzle book, to be honest, as those are incredibly fun, not to mention she needs to train tactics if she's just getting started. Laszlo Polgar's Chess, which is a collection of mates in one, two, and three moves, basically, is one that I find very entertaining and instructive for beginner and intermediate players.

"Everyone's First Chess Workbook" by Peter Giannatos or "How to Win at Chess" by Levy Rozman. The latter I have read and I personally think it is quintessential for all beginners out there, up until 1200.

@Flan Oh, I forgot about Levy's book. I haven't read it, but it must be really wonderful for beginners

Checkmate! by John Foley got me to 1000, and it's super fun and geared towards kids. It goes from teaching how the game works to tactics, good long-term strategies, opening principles, and even has a master game (Polgar vs Shirov) at the end.

I would recommend Fundamental Chess Openings by GM Paul van der Sterren. This book really helped me understand the basic principles behind openings such as the Italian and the Ruy Lopez, as well as some opening tactics. I would also recommend How to Win at Chess by Levy Rozman. Although I've never read this book myself, I've heard a lot of great things about it and how it's great for beginners. Another book I would recommend is Chess: The Ultimate Chess Tactics and Strategies (I'm not quite sure on the author, though, but I'm sure you can find it somewhere on Amazon). This book really helped me understand tactics like pins, skewers, discovered attacks/checks, and also more advanced tactics such as the windmill.

Hope this helps! Wishing your friend's daughter the best of success in her improvement journey!

Learn Chess the Right Way 1-5 by GM Susan Polgar.

When I was a kid, my favorite was a small book with only 64 pages about opening traps and combinations. Also I read a book about basic endgames and I liked solving checkmates in 2 and 3 that were publsihed in daily newspapers. I was too lazy to read the entire book "My system and blockade" by Aron Nimzowitsch.

It all kinda started with a stupid bet.

I’m a long-time gamer, WoW, LoL, CS...and I’m 28 now.
I’d tried chess before but found it boring compared to the fast, complex & real-time execution stuff I was used to.

Then in January 2025, a friend told me I should actually give chess a real shot because I was most of the time the one making the strategic calls when we played team games. I said no at first and told him chess was easy. He hit me with: Okay then, reach 2000 in a year and I’ll give you $1k. Fail, and you give me the 1k.
I Googled it, saw Tyler1 hit 1900 in a year, and challenge accepted. I even sold my gaming PC to force myself to focus. Now I need to reach 2000 between 20 Jan 2025 --> 20 Jan 2026.

Joining this club ended up being one of the best things that happened to me in this journey.
Seriously, you guys helped me so much to not quit. Big thanks to everyone here. And special shoutout to my guy Levy Rozman, my CoachChamp sensei, & coach Dane for his amazing chess sessions.
But above all, the legend Daniel Naroditsky, my only real “coach”, the one who basically taught me everything I know about chess.

Just this week, I started to see a real path to hitting 2000 in the time I’ve got left (~40 days). A lot of people at this level grind tactics, openings, strategy, all that… but honestly, I’m starting to believe it’s 80% mindset in this elo range. I’m going to test a little theory I have, and if it actually works, I’ll share it with all of you.

PS: my friend is now asking for $1.5k because he says I got coached by Levy. 😅

Good Luck & Have Fun

Thanks for sharing this background info, @Masky_Chess ! It's been a joy seeing your improvement journey unfold this year, especially as adult improvement in particular is quite dear to my heart.

I do hope chess remains a positive part of your life beyond January 20th of next year. You have been very kind, insightful, and positive in the club, and hopefully this positive energy will stay with us throughout the year in 2026!

Cheers!

In last night's match (I'm playing with black pieces) and I offered a draw (that was accepted) in the end position of this game with a clock situation of just under 30 minutes for my opponent and just under 4 minutes for myself. (80+10 game)

I had evaluated the position as follows:

1. I'm up a pawn
2. The pawns are spread out on both sides so their Bishop will be better than my Knight
3. The pawns aren't far advanced so there is going to be plenty of moves so my time disadvantage will be strongly felt as well as the Bishop v Knight in such an endgame

My thoughts were that this position would be fairly close to -1 possibly lower considering the above, I think the engine likes it more when I looked.

On a positive note I got to play my favourite opening (and got a fantastic position out of it) but wanted to play 6...Nf6 but couldn't quite remember all the details of it and it did turn out that I would have gone a little wrong (will have to make myself a short study of it over Christmas). The move 4.d3 has happened a few times lately so common enough to have a nice weapon against.

Game below:

Two questions I'd appreciate some help with:

How to approach a game like this and turn the advantage into a win, seems to be a common problem of mine?

Should I have offered a draw in a position like this or am I better to play on with low time?

Hi @Cartoon46, very nice game, you had 4 min with 10s increment, up a pawn. Your final position already looks very pleasent, only bad thing i see is a knight for a bishop, that might cause problems. Im a seasoned tilted blitz player, i think that because you already traded off a lot of material, you could probably start advancing with your pawn majority, keep one rook on the board to support the pawns, (if possible) trade knight for bishop, if not possible try to go after pawns with the knight, like the h3 pawn that because its an unsupported pawn can be attacked with R+N. I had a similar position yesterday too, up a pawn, rook endgame, but without the minors, i was in a defensive position so i started by forcing a rook trade (My opps rook was in a better position than mine). Then the most important part, king activity, try to advance your king (Learn opposition and triangulation). And then advance the pawn majority, trade off whites one pawn, use your 1 pawn as bait to go for the a and b pawns, or if white is going for your a and b pawns just promote. Hope i was able to answer your questions well!

Thanks for sharing this instructive game @Cartoon46 ! I have never seen 2...c6 against the King's Gambit, so I learned something new - it looks quite interesting!

I used to offer draws from favorable positions quite a bit when I was younger, perhaps influenced by fearing my opponent / risking throwing away a won position and losing the game. Not to say this is your motivation, as you noted, your time was quite low, so that adds to the complexity of the moment.

My general advice, and please do not take this as you "should have" or "shouldn't have" offered a draw, but rather, based upon my own mindset when it comes to improvement, is to adopt the policy of not offering or accepting draws if you feel there is life in the position. Said differently, if there are questions that you can meaningfully ask your opponent, and/or your opponent can ask you, the experience of playing these endgames is invaluable. @hhart10k mentioned that she wants to focus on endgames. There are many great endgame books to gain a basic understanding of endgame fundamentals (Silman's Complete Endgame Course stands out from my experience as being both practical and accessible for beginners to masters), but playing out endgames like this are invaluable to gain experience in practical endgames.

If you're unsure what to do in this endgame as you analyze it at home, I suggest turning the engine on and playing Rh1 to h2 back to h1 until you see a meaningful plan suggested by the engine.

Although you have four minutes on the clock (and thankfully 10 second increment). the questions I'd like to pose to my opponent include:

1) How do you intend to activate your king as it is currently cut off by my rook on the c-file?

2) If you can't activate your king on the kingside, I have a two vs one pawn majority on the kingside, so together with my king and knight, I'd like to slowly expand with ...g7-g5 + ...Kf7 and ...Kf6. As the pawns march forward, having the king as an extra attacking piece will prove invaluable. How do you intend to defend / stop this plan of slow expansion with all of my pieces working together with the pawns?

My basic lesson is to imagine a much stronger player that you have faced. Would they offer you a draw in that position as Black? It's quite unlikely such a player would be content with a draw, and they will likely operate under an important understanding: It's not my job to win this endgame, it's your job to try and save it!

In other words, Black doesn't need a "grand plan" here. I would slowly try to activate the king and expand the two vs one pawn majority on the kingside, and keep White's king restricted. Move by move, keep asking questions, and you may be surprised how difficult it is for your opponent to answer these persistent questions.

Worst case scenario, we somehow screw up the position and draw or even lose. As frustrating as that may be in the short-term, experiencing the path that you explored, and analyzing how you could have improved your play is invaluable for your development. Sure, setbacks and frustrations are inevitable, but you may surprise yourself in such situations.

I'll leave you with an interesting story. When my mom and I visited friends in Canada several years ago, I played in a simultaneous exhibition against a Grandmaster (I think I was around 1700-1800 strength at the time). Playing with the black pieces, I felt I achieved a good position out of the opening, and I offered my Grandmaster opponent a draw. He smiled and said, "Draw? Why? You might win! "

Once I removed my "draw anxiety" from the system, and had to continue, I focused and to my great surprise I actually won the game (admittedly the Grandmaster was playing several other opponents, so he wasn't able to singularly focus on my game).

Reflecting upon that experience, perhaps I would slightly change the wording of the Grandmaster in response to a draw offer: "Why? We might both learn. "

We're of similar ratings. So, as always, take my advice with a grain of salt. I think the position is objectively drawn, but I wouldn't have offered a draw.

Why I think it's a objectively drawn:
1. All of your pieces and pawns are on dark squares. This makes the Bishop much stronger than your Knight temporarily. 
2. The Rook endgame looks drawn. I suspect that, even if you trade Bishop & Knight plus a pair of pawns on the King's side, White might be able to hold the resulting position.

Why I WOULDN'T offer a draw:
1. 4:00+10 is plenty of time. I know it's stressful, but you can think on your opponent's time. I would only offer draw here if you really had to pee or something.
2. In my experience, nobody below 2000 actually knows Rook endgames. The computer will hold everything and make it look easy, but practically if you get to R vs R up 1 pawn you have great chances to win and basically no chance to lose.
3. KING ACTIVITY: After 35. Bxd2 and let's say 35... Kf7, White's King cannot enter the game. The most natural approach would be some Bc3->Kc2?! , but this would walk into a pin allowing Ne4! trading off Bishop & Knight.

Your basic plan is to activate your King, trade Bishop for Knight if you can, and keep White's King cut off.

That's a great question! Since other fellow Improvers have already made great contributions in efforts to answer it, I'll just include a few short thoughts here to your second question:

1. As @Logando2805 said, 4 minutes with 10 seconds of increment is a lot of time to think, especially considering the endgame position you had. It seems like a very complex position, as all rook endgames are, and I don't think your opponent would have been able to play quickly against your clock without making some sort of mistakes. Furthermore, you actually have more than 4 minutes, as your opponent still had time on their clock.

2. This idea is similar to a principle taught to many beginners: "never resign." You don't know how your opponent would have played in the subsequent endgame, so I think playing on instead of taking the draw would have been perfectly fine. Objectively speaking, that position is more than likely drawn, but practically speaking, there are chances for both sides to come away with a win. As I previously mentioned, it was not an easy position, and there are many opportunities for blunders (on both sides, frankly speaking). If you win that game, that's great! It shows your technique and skill as a player! If you lose, that's just as good (if not better) than winning; you'll get to learn more from your mistakes so that you won't make them in the future. Either way, by taking the draw, I feel like you're cutting yourself short for opportunities to learn and improve (no offense).

In regards to your first question, I feel like I don't have sufficient experience to give substantive advice, so take this answer for what it's worth: if you can trade some pieces (especially the rooks), I feel like you'd have some good practical chances for creating a passed pawn. Although the bishop tends to be a very active piece in most open-position endgames, the knight usually plays a key defensive role, so you may be able to defend a pawn or two from the bishop (maybe I'm wrong about this). Also, putting your pawns on light squares can be a good idea, making it impossible for the bishop to attack them. In the long-term, I would try to think about how I would make the promotion squares for one of my pawns a light square, since the pawn's promotion would be unhindered by the bishop.

Again, these are just a few points that I could come up with and that I would do if I were in your position. I could be wrong in some of them, so take them with a grain of salt.

I hope this helps!

I just wanted to add to my previous message. Never take the draw when you have winnig chances, not playing some of my winning games to the end, but drawing +1 positions. Even if you lose, the experience you get is more important than 8 elo. I wanna finish by saying, never take the easy way out, it might feel good for 5min, but what did you learn?

There should be a meme for when you feel like you just played a baller game after applying continued pressure to the opponent, utilizing an X-ray attack, trapping a queen, and checkmating in 23 moves, and then Gene (the engine) tells you, "you stink!"

EDIT: Real question, though. How do ya'll go about evaluating the engine's evaluation? Levy said several times to me that the engine doesn't always reflect the quality of play. The question might be too vague, but if anyone has concrete feedback on how to effectively utilize an engine, I would appreciate it.

the engine is always harsh on 'missed chances', I've had games where I've gotten a bunch of moves labelled as inaccuracies or mistakes for not winning quickly enough, but it doesn't matter if the eval goes from forced checkmate in 12 to +7 advantage, as long as it's still winning. In my opinion, a true miss is when the eval changes drastically, from completely winning to equal or losing.

There are always key moments in the game that are worth analyzing but it's more useful to test the moves you feel you could find instead of just the default engine line the game throws at you, more often than not, there are 'good enough' combinations that make more sense to you and you're more likely to find in your next games than the absolute first stockfish line.

Thanks to everyone that responded it's appreciated to get lots of thoughts on this!

@WeirdGerman Thanks for the advice, I always found this strange sense of playing a slow game and suddenly needed to change gears to more of a blitz speed, I have done this before (thinking back to a Halloween Gambit game (black pieces again) where I was an hour down on the clock, but being but a piece you're never offering that draw) but this is not natural to me. I think this idea of finding a simple plan and going ahead with it does make the thought of having to blitz alot more simpler and less scary!

One reason I think there was this disconnect was that I had finally run out of traps in my mind after this set of moves didn't occur.

Going back and forth between tactical and positional always feels quite a mental challenge!

Also helpful to think about how small the risk is rating wise for the benefits, as this is OTB it's 10 elo, but at least I'm not a junior player then it would be +20!

@Fischwitsch this comes from my very much homebrew response to the King's Gambit that I've been building up from the last year and a half that I came across in a couple of youtube videos when searching for anything interesting against the King's Gambit. Every now and then I go in depth in a particular line and add it to a CYOC on chessable that I have set up for it. There's some extremely difficult to find only moves for white and piece sacrifices in there that perhaps one day I'll share (I'll certainly finish it and enter it into the next community competition that they do!)

I really struggled to see these challenges for White in the position, particularly the issues down the C-file, I had gone there with the Rook wanting to play R7c2 and restore the threats on the 2nd rank. It never occurred to me that this move suddenly had extra value with a trade of Rooks. This changing mindset (and doing so quickly) is going to go into my notes as a target for improvement (perhaps on a thought of quick re-evaluation of the changing position and not holding onto the thoughts of the past if they don't apply anymore), alongside playing a bit quicker to not get into these positions.

I think another challenge I have with this position at the end is the open nature of it. Like an artist staring a blank canvass it feels like too many possible ideas that it's difficult to see the best one, if you don't start you end up with nothing. This with little time doesn't help, especially having lost a position where I was similarly ahead a week ago after rejecting the draw just before ending up in a drawn endgame with no time. Mistakes of the past should be kept there!

I have taken you advice and played around making some waiting moves for White and picking the most natural looking of the computer lines for Black this has helped alot with finding ideas for this sort of position. While in my mind it looked like it was going to feel full of risk for Black a small advancement and suddenly the position feels very strong, combining this with the ideas above really helps!

@Logando2805 Firstly, please never let rating hold back from offering advice especially when it's as helpful as this! I've had great advice of these forums from people both higher and lower rated, and the worst case is that you find some advise for yourself I really appreciate the visualisation of the difficulties that White faces here. Just a few moves and Black's position looks a whole lot stronger.

On the only times to draw, as these are evening games it's usually get quite late so fatigue does start to hit by the end of a game but since this was a home match my opponent would surely have the larger strain on this regard. More so given that I know they had played the day before while I hadn't for a week. So even less of a reason to offer a draw.

@Str0n6h0LD all really good thoughts thank you! It's easy to forget that if they are playing quickly because you have no time they are playing the game as if they had your clock time so will be more prone to errors. This does make the limited number of pieces on the board alot easier to handle especially if they do slow down and use some of their time.

Thank you all again (I'm sure I didn't cover everything in this there was so much!), it's really appreciated with a lot to go away to think about and hopefully improve on!

@hhart10k I also find it bizarre and unfathomable how the game analysis provide a % score, and usually just take note of the difference between my opponent's score and mine. But I do think that the whole question of how best to go about game analysis would be worthy of one of Dane's training sessions. I have a notebook of mistakes, missed opportunites, blunders and the occasional good move, but have no idea if this note taking is helping me, how best to put it use, how to get the best use of the facilities on this website etc. It seems to be one aspect of the game where you have to stumble around in the dark on your own in the hope that you hit upon a method that works for you. (And on those rare occasions when the engine give me a high % I am very happy to boast to my wife about it! Just call me a hypocrite 😁)

@hhart10k This is very true! The main thing i look for from engine evaluation is the trends, if the line is generally always going in your favour then this has been a rather good game, I've had games that are high 70s that look like this, sure there were better moves but always winning is always winning especially when the misses and inaccuracies require engine precision rather than easier general improvement. This sort of win feels very well played and not a foot wrong just taking the scenic route!

I've also had games around 90% that were inch perfect except for hanging a piece that thankfully my opponent missed too! This is obviously not a very good win since it was by good fortune that it didn't suddenly become a massively losing position.

The other thing to consider is how likely are you or your opponent find the right moves, a engine best move is all well and good but if you can't find the right moves that follow and if you don't its completely losing it's not the best move!

I would want to steal for this how backgammon engines I used to practice against would present the position which was by expected value (EV), which was effectively with perfect play what is your win% and lose% (with considerations for gammons and backgammons). Taking this idea into chess now consider a position there is some unknown underlying win%, draw% and lose% with consideration for our human level play. An engine evaluation can help with this but you have to look into how easy the position is to play as well. If you look through a game and you think your EV is constantly increasing (win% + 1/2 * draw%) then you've played a top game! If your judgement of this is constantly changing then its worth having a think about what a better more would be (and where it would be, perhaps the error was a few moves before the engine blunder). I hope this is useful!