Hi Folks - I’m sure this topic has been asked before but I checked the community info and top posts and didn’t see anything covering this - hope you don’t mind a basic question.

I started playing chess again over the last 2 months - haven’t done that since I was in middle school. Having a ton of fun playing it. I feel WAY worse at it than when I was a kiddo. Maybe I’m getting dumber. I’m having a hard time ‘seeing’ the board, coming up with sound strategies, and I can’t close for anything.

Is there a good community recommended resource to start learning and building chess skills in a progression that will move me from basics on to intermediate and hopefully More advanced learning?

I’ve been working some of the chess.com lessons but not sure how great they are, and I’m not totally sure I want to pay for it (I will if it comes highly recommended from the community). I spent some time over the last week on chessable but all the lessons felt super random and the teaching text was really hard to correlate to the board experience. I’m hoping to find something that will teach me in more of a progressive building block manner.

Wondering if there is a consensus for someone like me just getting started again who’s enjoying the game but doesn’t know anything about strategy, tactics, specific openings, etc.

Thanks I’m advance for any input.

I think its best to identify what you're not so strong at (eg middlegame) and then making the effort to fix towards it. In this case, I would recommend Facebook Groups such as one called something like Learners for Chess and Teachers, I cant recall the exact name. Those have a lively community for it where you could ask on questions.

You could also check out other less mainstream sites such as Remote Chess Academy which I think has a very good base for giving content though its not streamlined like what you'd have wanted though I think thats a small deal where you could just search it up from their channel anyways. ChessMood also offers good lessons but I'm not too sure on it and have tried it abit when I saw they offered a free 7 day course for all their premium material one time. I have some Chessable courses I have bought cause its comprehensive and suited to what I think I'd needed so thats why I said on getting what we think we need.

Getting a coach (shameless plug of myself being one hahaha) is also one way to improve since they can pinpoint your necessary areas of improvements as well as general ideas that could be recommended/used. Analysis is way more insightful in that regard and its easier to see where and why things are not so easy to have been followed up on, played, thought of etc. 

In general there are quite alot of free lessons and content online we can learn from but sometimes its not the lack of it but the structure on how it can be used in molding ourselves into a better player. Some players are able to commit to their own regimen and material accumulated then improve but getting insights (from a coach, stronger friend, club etc) is never surprising to know of.

Hope this helps and happy improving!

I pay for chess.com for $100 a year (Diamond) I recommend it. I do the lessons as well!

"Chess learning program or curriculum?"

https://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory

If you attempt to follow this I'm pretty sure you will run into the pay-wall from time to time.

You want free? Try:

https://lichess.org/learn#/  chess basics

https://lichess.org/practice checkmates, tactics, and endgames

Hi! It is very difficult to suggest you a training program without knowing you nor your games, but what I undertood from your post is that you need to go back to the basics. For that perhaps a beginner's book like Capablanca's "Chess Fundamentals" is a good start.

Self study is important for developing your chess skills, but I suggest you to interact with stronger players, teachers and/or coaches for gettng a better grasp of the game. I'm a Chess.com coach, please check my profile and should you be interested in lessons, please send me a message.

Good luck!

Chess Fundamentals - Capablanca
It contains all you must know.

I got this,..

Just discuss endgame studies here to start with:

https://www.chess.com/blog/TheJanitor308/o-laborum-dulce-lenimen

I have not tried any of these but Chess Dojo has a group that you pay a monthly fee to be part of. Remote Chess Coach has a 497 course if you want. ChessPathWays has a program too that you can try. While a coach is good, you will also need to some books to study. Avoid opening books because some coaches give you resources to look and as someone who studies openings, I lose most of my games in the middlegame and hardly any in the opening which shows where the priorities are