Start with the basics, practice regularly, and focus on both tactics and chess strategy to steadily improve your chess skills.
New to Chess – Best Way to Improve from the Start?
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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!
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!