Chess Newbie

Hi Guys, I am a new player..... a very new player, and ancient (over 50). I learnt how to play chess, or rather 'move the pieces' (like most people) as a child, but have never really started to try and learn until now. I have been using 'Fritz 13 for fun' for a couple of weeks  and am just starting to find my feet with the game, however I am a really awful player, I mean bad, but hey I'm having fun. Anyway has anyone got any tips on how I might steadily improve and learn? I seem to get myself forked and pinned most  of the time and have yet to win a game. Fritz is set as low as possible, but I am getting a right caning, still it's all part of the learning. Any ideas and comments would be great. Thanks V

50? s ! You're but a pup....

I Suggest play games against people, not computers.

Try online chess, not blitz, so you have time to think about your moves.

If you're able, get a premium membership here and do tactics trainer excercises every day.

If you lose, post your losses here, often strong players are willing to give advice

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

here you go kind sir, this link will give you good advice on playing n stuff. 

when you are playing make sure you look at the entire board so you dont get tunnel vision on one part of the board and end up geting checkmated when you had the winning position

basic stuff:

-Dont bring your queen out too early

-castle as soon as possible

-familiarize youself with the opening principles(I think the link will show you this)

-Develop your minor peices, 1st Knights, 2nd Bishops, 3rd queen after developing your peices then your rooks should be connected

Good begginner opening's for e4

White: this should do

Black: Same thing as white 

 Also you should play against real people not so much computers. 

Thanks guys for the advice, looking to get a premium membership in the new year. I hear what you are saying about playing against people, but at the moment I am so  embarassingly bad, I was hoping to stop making the really obvious stupid mistakes and blunders before I played againts a person. At the moment I won't last two minutes against .....well anyone at all, but will get there I'm sure. Cheers V

Well that explains alot; doh! Thanks Cravingollie, will look at what else you advise with interest

Cheers V

If you're too embarrassed to play people at the moment (no reason to be, but that's another story), here's an engine that can be set considerably weaker than Fritz.

http://wbec-ridderkerk.nl/html/details1/Ufim.html

Ufim 8.02 is both a Winboard engine and a UCI engine. Install it in the Fritz GUI as a UCI engine and set it as low as 700 elo. (And I think it's a weak 700 at that.) You might find that you can beat up on it.

Do you really think learning to beat a 700 rated engine is going to do anything  for your game? I dont agree, it will probably do more harm than good

I don't see how allowing yourself to win an occasional game is going to prevent you from learning; I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. I think the ideal situation is to find a level where you win about 25% to 33% of the time. Just enough to keep yourself from getting discouraged, but enough of a challenge so that you can analyze your losses and learn ideas.

Actually, I'm not sure if "Fritz for Fun" allows installing extra engines, so maybe my advice is a moot point. The OP might try using the sparring setting if he hasn't already tried that. It might adjust downward more than just the handicap settings.

Hello, VincentSM. Welcome to the game of chess. I also learned to play the game at an early age (8). Throughout my childhood, I have had three chess sets and have recently purchased a tournament set. I am certainly no master by any means. However, I love to share with others what I have knowledge of.

With that I would like to make a suggestion. As you study tactics and basic opening principles, play out a game between two masters and for every move made for both white and black try to understand why those moves were made. There will be some moves about which you may think, "Where did that come from?" But as you play the game out, the reason for the move may be made known to you. This has helped me.

If you ever want to play a correspondance game (as opposed to online chess), send me a message. We can agree to one move per day if you like. And we can even talk about our reasoning behind each move.

Thanks for all the really helpful and friendly advice. I'm currently playing a game against rooperi (thanks rooperi ) and what has really helped is that I have been forced to sloowwwwing down. Consequently after a couple of weeks of not solving any of the tactics problems here on chess.com, I've just solved three on the trot. Progress!! Cheers.

Slowing down is really good advice for a beginner.  Learn to think about your moves and don't move rashly.  Learn to analyze the position of your and your opponent's pieces, so that you'll know what pieces you're attacking when you make your new move, plus you'll learn to know if you're leaving any of your pieces undefended.  And playing against real people who make real people moves is far better than playing against a computer all the time which always makes computer moves.

This sounds like a daft question, but how are 'people moves' different from 'computer moves?' My initial thoughts are that people are more likey to make mistakes and blunders etc, thoughts anyone?

If you would like, I will play you in an unrated tackeback game also (as rooperi is doing).

If you'd rather just do one game a t a time that is fine but the invite is there.

I am also in the "ancient" age range and have decided to improve my game past the "move the pieces" stage also.

It's kind of hard for me to explain but it's something I noticed between playing against computers and playing humans.  I think mainly it seems like computers will keep using the same style openings and will make excellent moves with occasional blunders, when a human wouldn't play like that.  You're liable to get a wide variety of playing styles by playing different people, but it seems like computers tend to stick with the same style most of the time.

Computers play like they are some kind of machine....wait....they are machines. Point is, computers play based on math calculations and have zero intuition. Humans are much more creative in their play, thus making loads of fun.

I can't remember who but some said to: find a move, stop, look again, and find a better one (im paraphrasing but thats pretty much it)

Many thanks to Rooperi for a great game. I think I held up quite well even though I lost, I dont' think I went down without a fight. Am I able to post the game to get comments on it? Thanks

Thanks Rooperi

hey what the post mean