about to start study of chess...guidance needed

Thanks for the helpful responses. A few things:

1. I have do not have a good internet connection as of now. I only get internet (with really limited bandwidth) on certain times during the day, so right now I do not have the luxury of going on chess.com regularly. I plan to upgrade it soon, but I guess I can play against a human opponent online on certain days.

2. I do have Fritz, which I have recently purchased. I am not yet used to it, but I love it. The GUI and commands are a little bit overwhelming to me at first; once I'm used to it I think I'm gonna dump chessmaster and switch to Fritz. Not to mention it gives better analysis as well.

EDIT: after thinking about it for a while, I don't think I'm going to "dump" CM. The personalities I believe are much more fun to play than Fritz's, and the CM Academy is invaluable.

3. Thank you to the people who have recommended practising tactics. The website I posted also encourages it and I have a couple of books about it. Still, thanks for the website recommendation as it will serve as an invaluable resource for my endeavor.

The reason why I decided to study instead of just playing, playing, playing is because I need to develop good habits, and books tell me which habits to keep and which ones need to be disposed. If I just keep playing games without any instruction, I will just keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again, and I will not realise it. As they say, "practice makes habit" (I prefer habit over perfect), and if I practice the wrong things, I will be adept in doing the wrong things.

My rating has been in absolute free fall the last couple of weeks, so I may not be the one to give advice.

but that has never stopped my before...

Stress tactics.  Lower level games hang on tactics most of the time.  Trying to study subtle positional issues while your opponent is beating your brains out with direct attacks and tactical combinations will just make you crazy, and you will wonder why you are not "getting better".  Tactics tactics tactics.

Chernev's book is fantastic, I am reading it now.  Its an excellent choice.

Throw in a little endgame study.  Many lower level players badly neglect the endgame, and a little skill in this area will give you a huge advantage.

DONT spend to much time on openings.  Its ok to spend a little time, but deep opening study is for more advanced players.  Learn a few lines so you have some idea of where to start, but for the most part play the opening by good general principles (develop your pieces to active positions, get your king to safety, control the center, etc) and watch the tactics for traps and other problems.  Don't start trying to memorize a bunch of opening lines.  It is better to know five lines with a genuine understanding of why you are playing the moves you are playing then to know fifty lines from route memory alone. 

And if we play a game, let me win.  I have had the worst case of tactical blindness lately, my rating is diving like a paralyzed falcon.

 Just shut up...

 Lolololololol....good one

I have Pandolfini's endgame course. Is that good enough for someone at my current level?

All great advice! I have enjoyed this thread!  On Fritz, you might try the tactics trainer especially the option to do the puzzles on all squares/pieces that can be attacked.  I find this facinating as there are many times, squares that I miss.

You may also want to check out Silmans book called How to Reassess your Chess 4th edition.  It may be too advanced right now for you but there are a lot good stuff in the beginning.  I feel like I am starting from scratch myself.  I have been playing more off than on since 1970.  About a month ago, I decided to dedicate my free time to chess. 

Someone in the thread commented about not spending a lot of time in openings.  I have seen this advice before and I have a question for you all.  As I play the turned based online games here, I am finding that people are playing openings I have never encountered before.  How do you best handle a game when you have never seen the opening before?  I read that it is ok to refer to a book during the game but what if you didnt have one?  My answer would be to just try to do your best with the basics that you already know.  What other advice would you have on how to handle this, short of playing, loosing and learning from the loss? 

Chess Tempo looks really good. Especially with the price tag that trumps the exorbitantly (for me) priced Diamond subscription for Chess.com.

Anyone else here have a paid subscription to ChessTempo and can give recommendations if it's worth the money or not?

As an opponent chessmaster is fine for you, absolutely fine, you don't need rybka or Fritz -- it's like a beginner saying, I have a grandmaster as a training partner he's rated 2515... and someone says... Bah, how can you learn anything from that schmuck? You need to have 2800+ gm train you Magnus Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Aronian etc. Pretty obviously nonsense IMO.

You are right about Chessmaster playing strong and then blundering... the personalities Lacey (~1300) and Max (~1600) don't play that way. I recommend them.  They play instantaneously, won't make any crazy one move blunder type moves (won't hang pieces) -- won't miss any freebies you give them... but they do play poor moves that can be punished.

I just noticed that training outline you are thinking of using -- those middle weeks with the heavy survey of e4 and d4 openings... ehhhh... I'm not so sure about that -- seems heavy on the opening training if you ask me... I'd rather see three weeks on fundamental middlegame. Oh well nothing perfect and there's really only so much that can be accomplished in 12 weeks. If you aren't a genius with the memory of Pillsbury, you aren't going to actually be able to memorize all that he asks you to, imo.

I plan to work more on tactics, as most people in here have suggested, and possibly looking to get a paid subscription to Chess Tempo, still waiting for others' input about the website.

It's a great site, but you don't need a subscription, just train for free. :)

The premium features look enticing though 

 You could always use an online database.  There is one here at chess.com but you have to be a paid member to get beyond the first few moves.  I often use the one at 365chess.com.  Its a fairly large, has several search options, and the site is free with registration.  chessgames.com also has a database with masters games you can consult for free.

In general, however, use the databases as a learning tool, don't just pick the most popular move and bang it out.  Try to understand how that moves works with general opening principles.  How does it help control the center?  How does it help with develpment?  Does it create or defend against a tactical thread?  If you start training yourself to think like that you will be in much better shape when you have to start making it up yourself.  In lower level games you may very well run into someone who just start throwing some moves out and you go "off book" very early.  Even if his moves are weak, you need to have an understanding of what you are trying to do in the opening to get some advantage out of it.

 I just posted a game in the Game Analysis forum with annotations where I indeed do just that, trying to think of how my moves were sound... please check it out as it was an opening I had never encountered, nor have I seen an opening where my opponent moved only pawns for the first 15 moves or so...

Get chessbase 10 or 11 if you can afford it (about $150) and Fritz 6 is included in Chessbase 10.     Get the Fritztrainer DVD (about $32-opening DVD's can be great) that covers the London System because this is a basic opening and one-half of your games will be with White.  You can graduate to more sophisticated openings later. Get Silman's endgame book.  Solve the tactical puzzles on chess.com.  Go through Logical Chess Move by Move first.  Make sure you know how to checkmate with King and Queen vs. King and King and Rook vs. King. 

He's a beginner for god's sake... what kind of psycho-overkill is this? Maybe he should figure out if he really wants to stick with chess before dropping 200+ bucks on databases and opening system dvds (?!) ... especially when you can get good big databases and database guis and a stronger engine than fritz 6 online for free (and I don't mean bit-streamed I mean legit).

So should I study endgames first, with the daily tactics training?

No, just play lots of games and study tactics until you get to a decent level ( 1300-1400 live ).

One could do vastly worse than to follow that advice.

I always enjoyed Chernev's book, but John Nunn has some harsh criticism for his teachings.  You might want to read this article  http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman118.pdf by Dan Heisman (who ends up recommending the book with reservations).  Heisman's monthly column Novice Nook at chesscafe.com is a good resource, by the way.

I read this article holding my breath, because I really like Chernev and his book.  So I was glad to read his final thought:  "So if you have a student that should start reading instructive anthologies to form a basic foundation, then Logical Chess Move by Move is, no pun intended, the logical choice. "

One doesn't have to read many articles about the Masters to find they don't always agree in their analogizes of games. Sometimes it is amusing.