a question as a beginner
Sort:
Right now it would be best to play as much as possible to get an accurate understanding of your skill and then learn some basic opening principles
Learn these basic checkmating patterns and learn them well:
- King and Rook vs King
- King and 2 Rooks vs King
- King and Queen vs King
These are the most basic and can happen quite often and it's a must know, otherwise you'll play but won't be able to checkmate your opponent and finish and win the game even if you have a winning position.
If you know the rules, once you learned and understood these patterns and practiced them a little bit, just go and play. Play a lot and have fun. But play longer time formats so you have time to think and ensure your moves are not blunders. At least 10 min games, but preferably longer like 15 | 10 or even 30 min games if you have the time.
Sep 24, 2022
0
#4
lvvvnsi wrote:
so, I am interested starting playing chess as a hobby, I am aware of the basic rules, but my question is, as a beginner, is it better just to start playing? or should I learn basic openings or something?
It is better to simply learn a few basics (even if that just means learning the rules as you have done) and then start playing some games. Chess is about getting playing experience (which will also expose you to new patterns and help your pattern recognition in the future) as well as study/learning. Long-term chess is about a "learn as you go" type of thing.
A lot of improvement comes from playing chess, analyzing the game(s) to find improvements and correct errors, then rinse and repeat.
Since you've learned the rules, soon after you might want to look into how to perform basic checkmates (like Queen + King vs King or Rook + King vs King), basic theoretical endgames (like how to use King Opposition to win most endgames with even just a single extra pawn) and basic fundamentals such as chess opening principles.
https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again
Sep 24, 2022
0
#5
I'd say just start with something basic, like always opening with the king's pawn, try to protect your pieces and just play. I'm thinking you'll lose a lot for a while. Try to avoid making the same error repeatedly. John Bartholomew has some excellent video for beginners, for when you get too sick of losing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2huVf1l4UE
Check out the fundamentals videos he mentions too. Play slower at first so you can pay attention and think. Daily and rapid controls like 15/10, or 30 mins are the way to go. When you start getting the idea, start doing the free puzzles and free lessons here... It's a great hobby, worth the effort. Enjoy!
Just play and figure out how the pieces move and interact.
Stay away from fast time controls under 20 minutes.
There are also tons of beginner videos on youtube that you might want to watch.
Enjoy!
Sep 25, 2022
0
#7
lvvvnsi wrote:
so, I am interested starting playing chess as a hobby, I am aware of the basic rules, but my question is, as a beginner, is it better just to start playing? or should I learn basic openings or something?
You should start playing.
80% of your time should be just playing.
10% of your time should be doing tactic training using a list of tactics. Lichess.org offers free tactics. Chess.com offers paid tactics, but if you are going to pay for tactics, I would suggest chesstempo.com for that. I suggest starting heavily with mate in 1 / mate in 2 tactics.
10% of your time should be doing general studies, like reading good chess books or watching good youtube videos.
Helpful, instructive resources for every chess amateur...
Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond
https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell
Thank you guys for your replies. I definitely got alot of good tips and useful information.
I found best chess tutorials in YouTube. Channel name is WowChessChannel
Nice tips!
Sep 26, 2022
0
#12
Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a respected chess coach and chess YouTuber who helps beginners out :
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP5SPSG_sWSYPjqJYMNwL_Q
Send me one of your games and I'll be happy to analyze the game for free on my YouTube channel on Sunday livestream from 1-2PM PST. Ask me questions in real time!
This is a great way to improve!
Here’s more ideas to help you get better.
-I recommend two books for you: “50 Poison Pieces” and “Queen For A Day: The Girl’s Guide To Chess Mastery.” Both books are available on Amazon.com. Both books are endorsed by chess masters!
- Check out the 500 puzzles for beginners. These puzzles are unique and cannot be found anywhere else: . These puzzles are endorsed by chess masters!
-If you are serious about chess, I highly recommend you hiring a chess coach to help you.
-Also consider all checks and captures on your side and also your opponent’s side. Always as, “If I move here, where is my opponent going to move?”. Do this for every single move!
-Play with a slow time control, such as G/30 so you have plenty of time to think before every move.
Sep 26, 2022
0
#13
you should follow my blog which is about how to get better at chess! you can find it at chess.com/blog/skbmc . but here is a free tip of advice: you should just play lots of games, see where you end up on the rating board, and then you can watch some YouTube videos on what you can do to improve around your rating.
Play! And don't worry too much about the results. Every good player has lost hundreds--if not thousands--of games. Try to go over your games afterwards and figure out what went wrong. In the beginning it will probably just because you are leaving pieces undefended, or overlooking obvious threats. I'm sure that someone here will be happy to make a post about basic opening principles.
Sep 27, 2022
0
#15
As you get better you will eventually start to become comfortable with all phases of the game. I know there are some openings I still don’t know how to handle, or didn’t study enough, or just forgot due to never getting the position in games. I may of spent too much time learning openings though. So you see, even for a guy that spent a lot of time learning openings, there are still things that catch him off guard. At any level, you can never study the opening enough. So, it’s better at first to get familiar with general principles first.
The problem with this method, is, you will miss a lot of tactics, and your opponent will miss a lot of tactics. And, if you don’t analyze your game with a coach or stronger player, you will forever be oblivious to how much tactics are being missed.
No matter what you do, as a beginner, you will always miss a lot of tactical shots throughout all phases of the game, and so will your opponent.
With a diamond membership you can get a computer to check for the tactical shots you missed, or what your opponent missed, and usually that is enough to improve, however, the computer misses things, and sometimes, the lines it comes up with, no human would ever be able to figure out.
Also, even if you get your game analyzed by the computer on chess.com, and see the tactics you missed in game, you will most likely never see a game exactly like this again. Does that mean analyzing is a waste of time? No. First off, you might get the same type of tactics in another game. Second, it’s not just the moves one has to concern himself with, it’s the ideas behind the moves. If you find in game that that idea you had didn’t work, explain why, and note the conditions. It can be because you didn’t have enough attackers, or you forgot about a fork, or whatever. Jot down why it was a bad idea, and maybe next time you will get a similar tactic, then you can check this one, and see if the old idea works here. If it doesn’t, try something else. This is how you improve.
Being better at chess means you learned a lot more patterns than the zero you knew when you started. For arguments sake, let’s say a Gm knows 50000 patterns. Let’s also say for arguments sake say that an intermediate level player knows 15000 patterns. A beginner knows zero. Getting the idea.
When you start playing chess, it’s like you are blind. You leave pieces to be taken by enemy pieces, all the time. I made the mistake of just playing game after game when I first started. Back then also there was no tactics trainer. Part of chess is learning general principles, other part is learning tactics, another part is getting into the habit of doing a series of checks before you make your move. The first question you have to ask yourself is, is this move safe? Before you even make your move, you first have to determine why your opponent made his last move, and see if it created a check, capture, or threat. Dan Heisman talks about this, and does a good job at explaining it, though others disagree. Imbacon had cheat sheets, but they where taken down because he plagiarized his material. Long story short, you have to come up with your own checklist. The free ones a good start, but you would have to build upon them. It’s not about willing yourself not to blunder, but about systematically thinking about the same checklist every time you make a move, until you can do it automatically. Sooner or later you will just find yourself moving the pieces to the right squares.
Dan Heisman talks about this, but I just wanted to say you have to occasionally play people that are better than you, and also people that suck. You play people better than you to get tight game, and play people that suck to learn to convert your advantages. Don’t play people that are a lot stronger than you regularly, or you will learn bad chess psychology, quitting most games even when you are just down by a pawn. Play people about 200-300 points higher than you, 10-20% of the time. 10% again people who suck. And the rest people that are about your rating. These aren’t the exact percentages, but that is something you might benefit from.
A downside to playing people who suck too much (playing them regularly) is that you will in general make light on your opponents ideas, and sometimes overlook stuff. So don’t play people that suck too much, regardless of how happy it makes you…
One reason why most people don’t give detailed answers, is that no one wants to give away their secrets. I can tell you now that people that are lower rated don’t know basic mating nets with the queen, or with the queen and rook. Someone told you to study mate in 1’s and mate in 2’s, but I’ll tell you the book. Judit polgars father did a tactics book that has over 5000 puzzles. That’s the book, and that book, is a big chess secret.
General chess principles. Getting a good checklist, and tactics. That is how you improve as a beginner. And analyzing your games, looking up when your opening deviated from the book move, etc.
The problem with this method, is, you will miss a lot of tactics, and your opponent will miss a lot of tactics. And, if you don’t analyze your game with a coach or stronger player, you will forever be oblivious to how much tactics are being missed.
No matter what you do, as a beginner, you will always miss a lot of tactical shots throughout all phases of the game, and so will your opponent.
With a diamond membership you can get a computer to check for the tactical shots you missed, or what your opponent missed, and usually that is enough to improve, however, the computer misses things, and sometimes, the lines it comes up with, no human would ever be able to figure out.
Also, even if you get your game analyzed by the computer on chess.com, and see the tactics you missed in game, you will most likely never see a game exactly like this again. Does that mean analyzing is a waste of time? No. First off, you might get the same type of tactics in another game. Second, it’s not just the moves one has to concern himself with, it’s the ideas behind the moves. If you find in game that that idea you had didn’t work, explain why, and note the conditions. It can be because you didn’t have enough attackers, or you forgot about a fork, or whatever. Jot down why it was a bad idea, and maybe next time you will get a similar tactic, then you can check this one, and see if the old idea works here. If it doesn’t, try something else. This is how you improve.
Being better at chess means you learned a lot more patterns than the zero you knew when you started. For arguments sake, let’s say a Gm knows 50000 patterns. Let’s also say for arguments sake say that an intermediate level player knows 15000 patterns. A beginner knows zero. Getting the idea.
When you start playing chess, it’s like you are blind. You leave pieces to be taken by enemy pieces, all the time. I made the mistake of just playing game after game when I first started. Back then also there was no tactics trainer. Part of chess is learning general principles, other part is learning tactics, another part is getting into the habit of doing a series of checks before you make your move. The first question you have to ask yourself is, is this move safe? Before you even make your move, you first have to determine why your opponent made his last move, and see if it created a check, capture, or threat. Dan Heisman talks about this, and does a good job at explaining it, though others disagree. Imbacon had cheat sheets, but they where taken down because he plagiarized his material. Long story short, you have to come up with your own checklist. The free ones a good start, but you would have to build upon them. It’s not about willing yourself not to blunder, but about systematically thinking about the same checklist every time you make a move, until you can do it automatically. Sooner or later you will just find yourself moving the pieces to the right squares.
Dan Heisman talks about this, but I just wanted to say you have to occasionally play people that are better than you, and also people that suck. You play people better than you to get tight game, and play people that suck to learn to convert your advantages. Don’t play people that are a lot stronger than you regularly, or you will learn bad chess psychology, quitting most games even when you are just down by a pawn. Play people about 200-300 points higher than you, 10-20% of the time. 10% again people who suck. And the rest people that are about your rating. These aren’t the exact percentages, but that is something you might benefit from.
A downside to playing people who suck too much (playing them regularly) is that you will in general make light on your opponents ideas, and sometimes overlook stuff. So don’t play people that suck too much, regardless of how happy it makes you…
One reason why most people don’t give detailed answers, is that no one wants to give away their secrets. I can tell you now that people that are lower rated don’t know basic mating nets with the queen, or with the queen and rook. Someone told you to study mate in 1’s and mate in 2’s, but I’ll tell you the book. Judit polgars father did a tactics book that has over 5000 puzzles. That’s the book, and that book, is a big chess secret.
General chess principles. Getting a good checklist, and tactics. That is how you improve as a beginner. And analyzing your games, looking up when your opening deviated from the book move, etc.
Sep 27, 2022
0
#16
Fizzleputts wrote:
As you get better you will eventually start to become comfortable with all phases of the game. I know there are some openings I still don’t know how to handle, or didn’t study enough, or just forgot due to never getting the position in games. I may of spent too much time learning openings though. So you see, even for a guy that spent a lot of time learning openings, there are still things that catch him off guard. At any level, you can never study the opening enough. So, it’s better at first to get familiar with general principles first.
The problem with this method, is, you will miss a lot of tactics, and your opponent will miss a lot of tactics. And, if you don’t analyze your game with a coach or stronger player, you will forever be oblivious to how much tactics are being missed.
No matter what you do, as a beginner, you will always miss a lot of tactical shots throughout all phases of the game, and so will your opponent.
With a diamond membership you can get a computer to check for the tactical shots you missed, or what your opponent missed, and usually that is enough to improve, however, the computer misses things, and sometimes, the lines it comes up with, no human would ever be able to figure out.
Also, even if you get your game analyzed by the computer on chess.com, and see the tactics you missed in game, you will most likely never see a game exactly like this again. Does that mean analyzing is a waste of time? No. First off, you might get the same type of tactics in another game. Second, it’s not just the moves one has to concern himself with, it’s the ideas behind the moves. If you find in game that that idea you had didn’t work, explain why, and note the conditions. It can be because you didn’t have enough attackers, or you forgot about a fork, or whatever. Jot down why it was a bad idea, and maybe next time you will get a similar tactic, then you can check this one, and see if the old idea works here. If it doesn’t, try something else. This is how you improve.
Being better at chess means you learned a lot more patterns than the zero you knew when you started. For arguments sake, let’s say a Gm knows 50000 patterns. Let’s also say for arguments sake say that an intermediate level player knows 15000 patterns. A beginner knows zero. Getting the idea.
When you start playing chess, it’s like you are blind. You leave pieces to be taken by enemy pieces, all the time. I made the mistake of just playing game after game when I first started. Back then also there was no tactics trainer. Part of chess is learning general principles, other part is learning tactics, another part is getting into the habit of doing a series of checks before you make your move. The first question you have to ask yourself is, is this move safe? Before you even make your move, you first have to determine why your opponent made his last move, and see if it created a check, capture, or threat. Dan Heisman talks about this, and does a good job at explaining it, though others disagree. Imbacon had cheat sheets, but they where taken down because he plagiarized his material. Long story short, you have to come up with your own checklist. The free ones a good start, but you would have to build upon them. It’s not about willing yourself not to blunder, but about systematically thinking about the same checklist every time you make a move, until you can do it automatically. Sooner or later you will just find yourself moving the pieces to the right squares.
Dan Heisman talks about this, but I just wanted to say you have to occasionally play people that are better than you, and also people that suck. You play people better than you to get tight game, and play people that suck to learn to convert your advantages. Don’t play people that are a lot stronger than you regularly, or you will learn bad chess psychology, quitting most games even when you are just down by a pawn. Play people about 200-300 points higher than you, 10-20% of the time. 10% again people who suck. And the rest people that are about your rating. These aren’t the exact percentages, but that is something you might benefit from.
A downside to playing people who suck too much (playing them regularly) is that you will in general make light on your opponents ideas, and sometimes overlook stuff. So don’t play people that suck too much, regardless of how happy it makes you…
One reason why most people don’t give detailed answers, is that no one wants to give away their secrets. I can tell you now that people that are lower rated don’t know basic mating nets with the queen, or with the queen and rook. Someone told you to study mate in 1’s and mate in 2’s, but I’ll tell you the book. Judit polgars father did a tactics book that has over 5000 puzzles. That’s the book, and that book, is a big chess secret.
General chess principles. Getting a good checklist, and tactics. That is how you improve as a beginner. And analyzing your games, looking up when your opening deviated from the book move, etc.
The problem with this method, is, you will miss a lot of tactics, and your opponent will miss a lot of tactics. And, if you don’t analyze your game with a coach or stronger player, you will forever be oblivious to how much tactics are being missed.
No matter what you do, as a beginner, you will always miss a lot of tactical shots throughout all phases of the game, and so will your opponent.
With a diamond membership you can get a computer to check for the tactical shots you missed, or what your opponent missed, and usually that is enough to improve, however, the computer misses things, and sometimes, the lines it comes up with, no human would ever be able to figure out.
Also, even if you get your game analyzed by the computer on chess.com, and see the tactics you missed in game, you will most likely never see a game exactly like this again. Does that mean analyzing is a waste of time? No. First off, you might get the same type of tactics in another game. Second, it’s not just the moves one has to concern himself with, it’s the ideas behind the moves. If you find in game that that idea you had didn’t work, explain why, and note the conditions. It can be because you didn’t have enough attackers, or you forgot about a fork, or whatever. Jot down why it was a bad idea, and maybe next time you will get a similar tactic, then you can check this one, and see if the old idea works here. If it doesn’t, try something else. This is how you improve.
Being better at chess means you learned a lot more patterns than the zero you knew when you started. For arguments sake, let’s say a Gm knows 50000 patterns. Let’s also say for arguments sake say that an intermediate level player knows 15000 patterns. A beginner knows zero. Getting the idea.
When you start playing chess, it’s like you are blind. You leave pieces to be taken by enemy pieces, all the time. I made the mistake of just playing game after game when I first started. Back then also there was no tactics trainer. Part of chess is learning general principles, other part is learning tactics, another part is getting into the habit of doing a series of checks before you make your move. The first question you have to ask yourself is, is this move safe? Before you even make your move, you first have to determine why your opponent made his last move, and see if it created a check, capture, or threat. Dan Heisman talks about this, and does a good job at explaining it, though others disagree. Imbacon had cheat sheets, but they where taken down because he plagiarized his material. Long story short, you have to come up with your own checklist. The free ones a good start, but you would have to build upon them. It’s not about willing yourself not to blunder, but about systematically thinking about the same checklist every time you make a move, until you can do it automatically. Sooner or later you will just find yourself moving the pieces to the right squares.
Dan Heisman talks about this, but I just wanted to say you have to occasionally play people that are better than you, and also people that suck. You play people better than you to get tight game, and play people that suck to learn to convert your advantages. Don’t play people that are a lot stronger than you regularly, or you will learn bad chess psychology, quitting most games even when you are just down by a pawn. Play people about 200-300 points higher than you, 10-20% of the time. 10% again people who suck. And the rest people that are about your rating. These aren’t the exact percentages, but that is something you might benefit from.
A downside to playing people who suck too much (playing them regularly) is that you will in general make light on your opponents ideas, and sometimes overlook stuff. So don’t play people that suck too much, regardless of how happy it makes you…
One reason why most people don’t give detailed answers, is that no one wants to give away their secrets. I can tell you now that people that are lower rated don’t know basic mating nets with the queen, or with the queen and rook. Someone told you to study mate in 1’s and mate in 2’s, but I’ll tell you the book. Judit polgars father did a tactics book that has over 5000 puzzles. That’s the book, and that book, is a big chess secret.
General chess principles. Getting a good checklist, and tactics. That is how you improve as a beginner. And analyzing your games, looking up when your opening deviated from the book move, etc.
Well I think that book could help me! I will be certain to look for that book!
Sep 27, 2022
0
#17
Hi! I think that at your level it would be advisable to spend equal time playing and in improvement oriented tasks like own game analysis (mainly lost games) and study of beginner content from books and other sources. If you spend 1 hour/day in chess following these guidelines I think you can make a good progress soon and have a lot of fun.
Good luck!
Sep 27, 2022
0
#18
Beginners often go with some of the weakest pet openings like the Ware opening, or just moving a random piece with the first move every game, which makes it even harder to advance past beginner. Avoid this.
Pick E4 or D4 and stick with it until you know the game very, very well. You can even just decide to exclusively play one of these openings through your entire chess career, like Ernst Grunfeld did. Steer toward familiar defenses, too, every time when able. For instance, I always play the Grand Prix Attack when I see the Sicilian Defense and always play the Hillbilly Attack against the Caro-Kann defense. There are many other lines you can play against those defenses, of course, but those are the ones I exclusively play against them at my level. You'll eventually start recognizing patterns and avoiding some opening traps that you might be encountering when you're staying in as familiar of territory as you are able.
You will probably want to abstain from playing Blitz or Bullet at all until you advance past 1000 or so. Spamming blitz games doesn't really help you learn the game; it might even slow your progress and reinforce bad habits. It's going to take you time to learn tactics from puzzles and lessons. It'll take you even more time to recognize the tactics you have learned when you're in a game. Speed should come much later, only after you have solid fundamentals. Give yourself at least 15 minutes on your game clock.
Thanks again for the useful tips and information... and a question, is there any possibility I could play against someone who reads this thread? Just looking for practice partners or someone I could do a friendly match. 
so, I am interested starting playing chess as a hobby, I am aware of the basic rules, but my question is, as a beginner, is it better just to start playing? or should I learn basic openings or something?