An introduction/Question

I just wanted to say hello to everyone and introduce myself. I am Zack and I am 19. I'm a musician, love writing, classic style and movies, Brylcreem and Groom and Clean, and jazz/blues. I've gotten myself interested in many things and recently I had a five or so day internet outage which compelled me to play Microsoft's Chess game. Well, when the internet came back I went looking for websites and found this.

So, that's me! I've played a few games and lost. I'm not very good, but getting there. Just bought a board for home play today. I suppose I want to ask about learning the basic parts of Chess regarding strategy. My issue is mainly starting the game and not just making random moves. What would be your recommendations for learning how to properly play chess and become a player that could properly be challenged by others, and be a challenge to others? I realize playing helps, but I mean a book or anything that may be of help!

Thank you for your help in advance, I look forward to learning and being a part of this great community!

You are a classical musician? What instrument do you play?

A book that really helped me was patricks wolfs a complete idiot's guide to chess

and check out chess.com's extensive video library for all playing levels, assuming you are willing to buy a membership. It's worth it. 

Browse through the forum topics and you're sure to find help. Good luck.

Thanks everyone! I am thinking of a membership at some point for sure! I will check libraries for books, too. I am not a classical musician, more on the jazz side if anything. I started playing drums around the age of four and have had lessons from various teachers, including a really fantastic local jazz great. I just so happened to learn guitar, piano, and harmonica (huge blues fan) over time. Drums have always been my "thing," though and I've studied a great deal on the greats from Krupa to modern guys like Bill Stewart.

Hello there Zach!  Greetings to world of chess and our fine community here at chess.com.  I've played on most other sites and firmly believe chess.com is by the best for its interactive community and wealth of training tools like tactics trainer and openings explorer.  Take some time to explore the site and read/watch the video's.  I'm sure there are plenty who will help you with selections in study material.  I am also named Zach however I graduated in 93' rather then was born .

To your question and since your very new to chess try this, In your first 8 or so moves move both your e and d pawns, both knights, at least one bishop and castle kingside(short).  ** Remember this! Your E Pawn, on the Kings file is not Protected like the D Pawn is with the Queen.  So move your knights to protect those important center pawns accordingly.  From there, everything should fall into place 

in the following diagram you are white and from here just try and follow some basic rules of chess.  Make sure your minor pieces are always protected.  pay attention to pawns that can be captured without being able to recapture and don't underestimate those pawns!  Buy a beginers chess book and just read around this site.  Take material when its given and don't try and make "genius moves" just get your pieces out, protect them and look for opportunities to attack your opponent.

The biggest thing for me, when I started, was just not making simple errors. I would just suggest making a "random" move (pick some kind of plan--like "develop my pieces") and then ask what his best response is. (Like, if I move my rook here, what will he do? . . . Oh, he'll fork my king and rook). Pretty much just checking to make sure you aren't hanging pieces will get you through a couple games, and you'll start to form ideas of "plans."

I'd suggest trying that, before you read any books. Maybe don't pick up a book, or study any openings, until you've played 5 consecutive games without dropping any free pieces?

Also, if you notate your games and review them later, that will do wonders. But just tactical ability alone should get you to a compartively strong level. Because everyone makes mistakes, and even if you're positionally losing, if he drops a piece to a 4-move combination, you'll win. Not that you're ready for that yet, but just an example of how far you can go without really knowing "strategy."

For a good beginning opening, I'd recomend this-- it's not objectively the best, but it teaches you develop, and usually gets you to a survivable middlegame (by contrast, beginners that try some fancy "mainstream" business often get destroyed, sheerly by lack of opening knowlege)

Hope that's not too much analysis, but that opening should help you get past 1000 quickly. After that, you should probably ditch it, or seriously study it. But against low-rated players, it cleans house, while giving you a concrete goal: get back the pawn.

Seraphimity and 9thEagle, thank you for both of those. If I have this right, Seraphimity, yours is an approach that seems to be all about taking control of the middle whilst 9thEagle's is about destroying the black pawns for the sake of having easy access to their more higher valued pieces; am I somewhat correct in saying this. The hardest part with all of this is understanding that in chess you do not know how the player will react, so any given theory would need to be adapted to their movements. Of course, I am very new to this so I have not yet explored such options. I am trying the daily challenges, and can figure out the easier ones better at least.

hey there Zach, I was not advocating center control although it is likely thee most central, no pun intended ;), theme in chess opening theory.. I was more trying to give you an easy structure that will allow you piece development, and some safety.  Since you are just learning playing a safe easy to understand begining is going to give the best shots at learning how all the pieces work together.  From what I gathered you really are a beginer here so 9thEagles annotations while accurate may have been a bit advanced for you.  Just do something that gets pieces out and have fun.  I was taught when I was 5 years old what I told you.  Worry about center control and all that once you have some games behind you and see how people react to moves and what not.  Then start adding things like g3, Bg2 or the fianchetto.  just leave it there til your opponent forgets and capture his rook.  those little victories will set on the path of finding your own style of play.  as always, GL and .....give no mercy,, as non will be given you... ;)

Read Chess Fundamentals by Jose Raul Capablanca. This is a one of the best book for beginner and intermediate players. The more you know about chess  the more you enjoy playing it.

I think the process for learning chess can be similar to the one you described for learning music including lessons, studying the games of the greats, and the recognition that it takes time.

Seraphimity, I am a HUGE beginner. I had to refresh myself on the movements just a few days ago! So, it's all luck to me at the moment, except I'm slowly developing my mental ability to "see" possible ramifications of my moves. Nonetheless, I'm sure playing will help me a lot. MyCowsCanFly is pretty much right. I learned so easily from either playing, reading up on musicians, or simply listening. Everything added to my abilities, whether it be mentally or physically. So, this mus not be much different.

Mandy711, I'm going to look it up now, thank you!

If you have time, zack, play a bunch of games and you will recognize some distinct patterns before reading many books. The games you play may help you understand what you then read much better.  Since you are starting, I would strongly suggest that you just play and try to take evertyhing in. Don't worry about losses. It appears your goal right now is to learn, and even the titled players here will probably tell you they learn more when they lose.

AlCzervik, win or lose, I find myself learning, even if it makes me realize I need to really look to see what can happen with each move I take.

One more question for now, as it's confusing me. Openings. It seems that the diagrams all describe moves made by BOTH players, not just one. So, lets say one was to move their first pawn to e4, is this consider the French defense, or must one wait until the next player's move to see how they respond to then properly do your next move to carry out a theory? Or is an opening simply dependent on the move of the second player?

Don't study openings, just follow opening principles.  There's plenty of videos on youtube or on chess.com that discuss opening principles.  Read this and you will play just fine in the opening.

http://www.chess.com/article/view/the-principles-of-the-opening

Buy a basic tactics book.  Yasser Seirwan's Winning Chess tactics is a great book to start with.  Learn all the basic tactics and try to solve tactical puzzles.  If you buy a membership here use the tactics trainer and the chess mentor courses on tactics these will all be very helpful.  

Also learn basic endgame ideas like opposition, basic king and pawn endgames.  Danny Rensch has a video series on everything you need to know in the endgame that will help greatly.

The chess.com's study plans are pretty good too.  Start with the beginner tactics and endgames section.  

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

I would agree with this.

lol... too funny, well it would seem a quick study...  ... what mattyf9 said!

Thanks guys, will be doing all of that. From reading about.com which has many diagrams, it seems it's just simply dependent on how the other player reacts. Very interesting and will be quite the challenge to learn, but hey, it should be fun, too!

It is not the moves of openings that matter, but the ideas behind them. Without ideas there cannot be an opening (or anything), so make sure you know why moves are they way they are. It's very important for players of all levels.