New to Chess – Best Way to Improve from the Start?

I’m brand new to chess—just recently learned how each piece moves and started playing a bit. I come from a poker background, which I really enjoy, and a friend from poker got me into chess. Now, I want to take the right approach to studying and training so I can improve efficiently.

Since I’m just starting out, what are the best ways to build a strong foundation? Should I focus on tactics, openings, endgames, or something else first? Are there any must-read books, courses, or specific training routines that worked for you when you were a beginner?

I’m looking to improve properly from the start rather than develop bad habits. Any advice, study plans, or training methods would be really appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help!

The best two books are . . .

And . . .

IMHO

Hey Panda,

I'm from a poker background too

I haven't been playing for long but I'll offer my thoughts anyway.

1. There is an enormous amount of information available on playing chess. So much so, in fact, that it can be overwhelming so ... be selective and focus on a couple of sources. Like Rich's seclections above, for example.

2. Don't be tempted to play a new opening every week. At the beginner level the opening you choose isn't hugely important - concentrate on opening principles instead. DO NOT waste time trying to memorise an opening 20 moves deep - your time is better spent elsewhere.

3. Focus on learning, and implementing, basic tactics like forks, pins, skewers, discovered checks etc. One of the best ways to do this is by solving problems (you'll find these here on Chess.com and on Lichess too).

4. Play lots of games just to help develop your 'board vision' - the more you play, the better you will get at spotting things. And then review your games afterwards - don't worry if you make a blunder (we all do, especially at lower levels), instead focus on not repeating that blunder.

5. Have fun!

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Good Chess Openings Books For Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-openings-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

Chess Courses - Instructional Resources...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/beginners-chess-course-instructional-resources

You need to focus on tactics, protecting your pieces, and opening principles. You need to learn the most basic checkmates as well, like scholar's mate, fool's mate or how to checkmate with 2 queens or 2 rooks. Go to lichess, click ''learn'', then ''chess basics'', and do all the exercises there. Do as many puzzles as you can. Correspondence chess (''daily'' chess here on chess.com) is great for really thinking the moves through. As a beginner, you need time to make good moves. The popular streamers can play at lightning speed, because they have decades of experience.

Building the tactical foundation is by far the most important thing, if you don't have it, it's impossible to understand high level games. For example, a good player might move their knight onto a square, where it can be taken by a pawn. But, if the knight is taken, there is a rook behind the square where the knight moved from, which takes the opponents queen. That was a simplistic example, but even at the very highest level games are decided by tactical moves like that.

> New to Chess – Best Way to Improve from the Start?

Find a local live coach

Capablanca's advice: to improve you must start with the endgame and work back. That's how you get an initial "feel" for how the pieces move and influence squares, with few distractions. It's very satisfying seeing a beginner's flash of recognition when they figure out the way to checkmate with K+R v K.

Then move on to understand basic tactical devices like the pin, fork, skewer, overload, discovered attack, removing the guard etc.

If you just go straight to doing puzzles without first understanding the basics, you won't know where to start looking.

Hello TragickPanda, I have viewed a few of your games and I first want to ask if you know each piece has a different value? I see you giving up or sacrificing minor and major pieces for pawns. Trades and sacrifices are OK, when the trades are even or in your favor.
Values:
pawns 1
Knights 3
Bishops 3-3.5, depends who you ask
Rook 5
Queen 9
King is Priceless

I also noticed you let your opponent freely move into your territory and don't take pieces that are threats. The advice you will get in the forums can be helpful, but most of it is for players with a better understanding of the game. I am sure you know this from your poker training. You remember getting advice about things but you didn't know when was the right time to actually use the advice. I just started playing about 6 months ago and I didn't know about the piece values and what I should be looking for or how to play against the different playing styles.

I suggest you start watching a beginner series on YouTube. This one helped me learn the game as it is played today. The series is taught by a Grandmaster. The videos are informative with enough humor to keep you watching. These videos taught me why I should play a certain move and what to plan for and against. The videos are specifically targeting beginners. They are from Aman at Chessbrah. The series is called BUILDING HABITS to improve your chess. The link to the first of 8 videos is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRvksIZpGc&list=PLUjxDD7HNNThftJtE0OIRFRMMFf6AV_69&index=1

Good luck and have fun as you struggle to learn this great game.

by far have to say when you put in poker terms makes it easier to understand thank u so just like learning gto vs exploitive lol

ty yes new best advice and i watch gothamchess just sometimes i feel like he speaking a foreign language since im not familiar with terms

Just play.

Good Chess Books for Beginners and Beyond…

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell

I really like Levy Rozman's (GothamChess) How to Win at Chess. (I would read this even before starting on his Youtube videos.) Levy is good about explaining the how and why of chess and setting a foundation for learning the game. I'd go through that book before jumping into openings, puzzles, endgames, and Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess (honestly I can't figure out if the people who recommend that book are trolling or not).

https://www.chess.com/blog/alirayyansanwal

Checkout GM Aman's Building Habits series on youtube. He does a great job explaining what you should be concentrating on at different rating levels. Daniel Naroditskiy is good too!

Learn and apply the most important principles of chess. - (core of my teaching)
Always blunder-check your moves.
Solve tactics in the right way.
Analyze your games.
Study games of strong players.
Learn how to be more psychologically resilient.
Work on your time management skills.
Get a coach if you can.

For every piece of advice you hear... there's someone else saying the opposite. I don't think you can just take someones advice, I think you have to listen to different perspectives and choose who to heed based on what makes sense for you.

My recommendation would be to watch some videos targeted at beginners. There are some good ones from hanging pawns, gothamchess, and Daniel Naroditsky.

Since, you come from Poker Background.

I can give you some similarities.

- Classical Openings in Chess can be similar to Strong Hole Cards. Aces, Kings, etc.

These openings are generally recognized as being strong majority of the time.

These Chess lines aim to fight for an equal share of space on the board.

They are also very forceful in the beginning stages of the game. They often aim to pressure the opponent in order to maintain or generate an advantage.

- Hyper Modern Openings in Chess are more similar to Connected Hole cards. 56 Same Suit or A2 Same Suit

These openings are not as strong at the start, but they can have very deadly counter attacks.

These openings are often called passive due to not claiming a fair share of space in the beginning, but as you know with connected hole cards sometimes these openings can pull off crazy upsets.

These openings are often considered to be more risky because the pay off may not come, but people still really enjoy these types of lines and so they remain very popular.

————————

Most people tell Beginners to start off with Classical Openings as a starting foundation.

Similarity, People often tell Poker players to wait till they got good hole cards hands.

Dear TragickPanda,

My name is Gabor Balazs. I’m a Hungarian FIDE Master and a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one given way to learn and improve.

First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analyzing your own games. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem is that it can't explain to you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why it is so good or bad.

In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames) and if you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students enjoy the lessons because they cover multiple aspects of chess in an engaging and dynamic way, keeping the learning process both stimulating and efficient. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.

If you would like to learn more about chess, you can take private lessons from me (you find the details on my profile) or you can visit my Patreon channel (www.patreon.com/Bgabor91), where you can learn about every kind of topics (openings, strategies, tactics, endgames, game analysis). There are more than 25 hours of educational videos uploaded already and I'm planning to upload at least 4 new videos per week, so you can get 4-6 hours of educational contents every month. I also upload daily puzzles in 4 levels every day which are available with a FREE subscription.

I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck with your games!