Chess For the Total Beginner

Hi everybody, I apologise if you get these kinds of posts a lot, but I thought it might be interesting to get some feedback from more experienced players.

I am a beginner to chess, having only started to play it a few weeks ago. So far I'd say I've learned quite a lot; openings and end-games and an assortment of trap moves, yet I still seem to be losing to low level computers and real players quite a lot.

I was just wondering how did the more experienced chess players here "up their game" so to speak? Is it just an issue of practice practice practice? Did you use books/articles? Also I was wondering if the "Chess Mentor" feature really helped anyone improve their chess, as I'm planning to upgrade my account later this year to start using it if so.

Many thanks for any info you're willing to share!  

Two words : Feedback loops.

You can study, practice, read, listen, watch and do any "solo" activity but unless you get your chess playing critiqued periodically, you really aren't going to make efficient use of your time. 

Get with a strong player, post a few of your games on these forums and ask for feedback.   Like learning a new language by immersing oneself around native speakers, you want more experienced players to keep pointing at things you are doing from game to game that "instantly" strikes them as wrong.  

90% of what I know about chess came from getting yelled at to "not do this, not do that'. 

Given where you are currently at, Chess Mentor is quite good if you choose to progress through the lessons sequentially (from the beginning) and not use the default (adaptive) mode.

Shivsky makes an excellent point about feedback loops. If you're interested, this idea is discussed in more detail in the opening chapter(s) of an excellent (imo) book by Dan Heisman "A Guide to Chess Improvement: The Best of Novice Nook". You'll probably find the same stuff on the Novice Nook webpages at ChessCafe:

http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm

and look for the "Feedback Loop" and "Chess Improvement" articles.

Thanks for the help everyone. Feedback loops definitely sounds like an interesting concept which I will look into. I also just got a copy of "Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition" which has gotten great reviews from a lot of people. Also I'll be sure to check out that book, anything called "A Guide to Chess Improvement" should lead me in the right direction.

And Paulgottlieb, I may take you up on that offer, as I would like as much feedback as possible at this point.

There are about five different kinds of basic tactics.  Learn what they are, and how to execute them.

Then, play games at slow enough a speed that you can, on each and every turn, go, "Do I have a fork here?...Do I have a skewer here?...Do I have a pin here?...Do I have a discovered attack here?..." etc.  Do the same for your opponent, with respect to his potential attacks on you.

When you're not playing, practice these motifs with puzzle books and tactics trainers.

That, plus elementary endgame knowledge, will put you ahead of 95% of all chess players in existence.

MrReesh, if you want to play me a few unrated games, maybe we could help each other get better.  Perhaps we could comment on the games as we play, and unrated is best for learning since you don't have to worry about your rating dropping.

MountainGorilla you say there are five different types of basic tactics, do you mean forks/discoveries etc or something else? And thanks for your input, I'll be sure to put in a little more work on my endgames.

Sure N2UHC I would play a few, I'll send you a challenge soon.