Suggested newb reading?

Hi, I'm new to chess study and am looking for foundational information and peer guidance. What I've learned so far is that a student of chess needs to:

• study masters play
• practice tactics
• read read read
• play play play

And to a degree I'm doing all of these things. But, with so much info out there, I could use help focusing my efforts on what's important and quality (as defined by enlightened minds).

I'm also curious to know if there is any kind of exercise to improve consistency since that seems to be the key to anything where success is determined by one or two mistakes (and my biggest weakness)?

Thanks guys and glad to be part of the group.

I'd suggest focusing on tactics, really. Chess.com's tactics trainer is all right, but I also warmly recommend the tactics trainer on Chesstempo.com. One benefit is that it has a non-blitz mode for tactics, where you're given infinite time to solve your problems. It's great for letting you analyse things thuroughly, especially as a newer player. Chesstempo also has an endgame trainer which is both useful to learn typical endgame themes and also great for calculation - something you can even transfer over to the other stages of the game. Also, tactics in general are perfect to improve consistency, since this is typically where most games are decided on sub-master level.

Otherwise, I'd say a simple understanding of strategy is enough to have, really, so just catching the basics should be enough for a beginner. Something akin to what you find on the Wikipedia entry over "Chess Strategy" should suffice. I don't really think studying master games that much will lead to a lot, as the relevant themes are typically very hard to fully comprehend. If you insist, though, finding annoted games that explain things suitable for your level could be worth considering, and if you're up for some reading, people typically recommend Chernov's Logical Chess - Move by Move for that purpose.

Thanks for your very qualified advice bestpony. I have been, out of sheer laziness, focusing on the tactics trainer here the most. some days are better than others, but for the most part, my ability is abysmal comparatively to others (I'm still trying to claw my way back to the initial rating of 1200). sound advice. eliminating the time factor at chesstempo is quite appealing since timed games, in general, have been quite the adjustment. if my opponents are any indication, I take entirely too much time to make a move. but I imagine this is normal in the beginning (I hope!). as for the reading and strategy, being an avid reader who hates sucking at something cool like chess, I'll be reading everything you suggested. Thanks!

I agree you need to focus on tactics. At your level developing your tactical and analytical skills is what's most important. I also agree with bestpony about chesstempo.com. It's a great site for tactics training. I have a gold membership there so I can create custom problem sets to customise my training.

I believe you should do two types of tactical puzzles. You should do lots of very simple 1-3 move puzzles to improve your ability to recognise basic tactics such as captures, checks, pins, forks, double attacks, discovered attacks, etc. The chess.com tactics trainer is not very good for these kinds of problems which is why I prefer chesstempo.com. A very good book for this kind of training is Chess Tactics for Students by John Bain.

You should also do more challenging problems to develop you critical thinking, calculation, and visualisation skills. These are the kinds of problems the chess.com tactics trainer is good for. Chess Tempo is of course good for this kind of training as well.

In addition to tactics training you should also play lots of games and analyse them. You should try to understand why you made your mistakes so you can improve your thinking and make better decisions in the future.

Happy chess.

I'll go a little wayside on my advice, but I base this on my teaching experience with beginners.

I'd recommend you first set up a study plan for yourself. This plan must try to include all elements of chess, from openings to endgame studies, tactics, and strategy. Don't panic yet, let me break it down some for you.

For tactics, I highly recommend the book titled "101 Winning Endgames" by Bruce Pandofini. First, it's a cheap book, less than $10 on Amazon. Second, it's essentially a endgame tactics book which shows you all kinds of tactical combinations and tricks that you'll see and use in chess, broken down with only a few pieces in each demonstration which I find, and so have others I've taught/advised, much easier to learn and understand. So tactics, buy a less than $10 book and study it- no- MASTER it's content. That'll suit your tactical study for at least a few weeks to a month depending on how quickly you learn it/use it. After that, Chess.com has a tactics trainer program you can use, ChessTempo.com has a free one (I recommend this over Chess.com because it has an untimed feature AND it's free). Try to do 12 or more puzzles a day, and always review the ones you got wrong and find out why you didn't find the right moves.

Openings- easy- just google "opening principles in chess" and it'll come up with dozens of articles explaining them. Learn then, understand them and use them in your own games! Review all your games from then on and for the first 8 moves cite which opening principle you used for each move you made. If you made a move which doesn't fit any you probably could have played a better move! I'll tell you now that I've never given any serious study to openings and using the opening principles has gotten me this far in chess. You can feel confident that at your level and even beyond following the opening principles and mastering them will give you playable positions in your games and you can use your time on other chess topics for your level. Don't limit your mindset to only a few positions, you may very well begin to use it as a crutch and it'll limit your learning in chess. I recommend, at your level if nothing else, play every opening that follows the opening principles well and experiment and learn from them.

Now endgame study, one book I've read and can recommend is Silman's Complete Endgame Course. It breaks the endgame content into rating categories, you learn more as your rating progresses (easy!). I think the book is around $20 on Amazon, I forget. That book will last you for years though so well worth the money in my opinion. There are other endgame books out there that others highly recommend too so maybe do a little research on it first.

Strategy- The hardest part of chess to learn in my opinion and I'll be honest I recommend a coach for this because they can always do a better job teaching this than any book can but if not a coach then there are books out there that can help each it to you. A highly recommended book is Logical Chess, Move by Move by Chernov, but I have not personally read it. The ability to create plans in chess is a lifelong learning, one you'll continually work on and improve so don't worry as much about mastering this immediately. Instead, focus on creating plans and trying to execute them in your games. Sometime's they'll be the wrong plan, or poorly executed plan, or both, but other's can help you improve on that if you ask for their opinion and give them your reasoning on why you made the plan you did in your game/position in question.

And above all, keep chess fun. It's not school, it's not work, so don't allow yourself to get into the position that it frustrates you. You probably won't become awesome overnight, but little by little (sometimes a lot!), you'll get better. Have fun!

thanks squareshot. focusing on tactics does seem to be improving my game. happy chess! also great advice learning2mate. I do feel like I'm getting better thanks to helpful people and me accepting loss as a learning tool. it's more fun that way. and lots of great info to go through thanks!