Enjoying Chess again after 35 years.

Hi everyone, first post here. I was on the chess team 35 years ago at school and then never played again. A month ago I downloaded an app and got beaten on level 1! I realised how much  I had forgotten, besides the fact that many years of taking medication for epilepsy has had an effect on my memory, now my brain is like a quad core computer with 512 meg of RAM.

We started playing against each other at work after my workmates saw me playing and I decided to log in here and get some tips. Interestingly a few days ago the app totally thrashed me every time I played against it on level 6 so I struggled against it on level 5 yesterday. BUT: After watching the video on opening moves I tried another game and beat the app on level 5. Deciding it must be a lot weaker than level 6 I went back to level 6....... and beat it! Not that I'm saying that is good by the standards of others here but it just goes to show that listening to the right advice can make a huge difference. 

Anyway maybe one day I will get the courage to challenge a few beginners here but until then I'll see how I do against the app

Welcome back to the game! Jump right in and play. No one will remember playing you 5 minutes after the game because they will have moved on to the next one! And within a few games your rating will connect you with people appropriate to your level. Cheers

I also began playing after many years of not touching it. About 2 years ago I began playing Chess, Chinese chess, and Go. The two last games I've learned fresh. Chess I played last at around age 14. Picked it up again at age 30.

My tips to you after playing it on daily basis over the board and in the app are:
1. Get some beginner chess books and go over the chess games in those books over a physics board. That way , especially if openings are explained, it gets imprinted better in your mind.

2. Try not to spend too much time playing blitz under 10 min and don't play blitz under 3 minutes. At least avoid it until you're very comfortable.

3. Make sure you intuitively know where each square corresponding to specific coordinates is. To me it seemed difficult at first and I looked at the board a lot when writing down the moves. Now I almost always know what move was made and the coordinates of the squares. Use chess.com board coordinate drills feature. I think it is very good.

4. Watch chess videos. I highly recommend beginner videos here on chess.com. The more advanced ones are good for beginner too but you should listen to them slowly and without distractions. Make sure to use board over the table and regularly rewind a few minutes to make sure you didn't miss anything. There are also many videos on YouTube about history of chess and chess players.

5. Write down all of your OTB games.

6. If you want to make sure you stay interested and do not get bored with chess I recommend you go to a chess club where you live. I also find it very refreshing to own different chess sets and different color boards. That way, at least in my case, I switch up the board and pieces regularly and it makes my mind keep attention focused on changing colors o squares and different chess pieces.

 

Thanks, all good advice - I think this in particular about not trying to play too fast is good for me. I think my biggest weakness at the moment is not paying attention to threats due to playing too hastily.

I bought a dozen old books on "openings" recently as advised - since most of the discussions involve one picture then a series of moves quoted below my next step is to get a normal chess board [not tablet related   ] and plot the moves out one by one to see what they are talking about.

Today I decided to try my hand at Blitz. I started as an 800, this evening I am a 1269.

I was interested that on one game I had just lost my queen during a quick decision and only had a castle left compared to his queen. Then the time ran out and I "won on time", I imagine it calculated how long each of us took to make our moves. One game I lost but it was a mistake where I accidentally touched a pawn instead of a knight and totally messed up my opening. I think I will play a bit more of the blitz, it helps me learn to think quickly.

I hadn't played since the late '80s or early '90s, until I joined this site a few years ago.

The kid's still got it, though... went from 1200 to 2180-something in a bit more than a year.

welcome back to the game!

Chess.com has made it a lot easier to find  games with people your same level. So there are a lot of people that did not have time to go to a club a club that now can play.

I played as a kid in school also then gave up the game until I was in my 30s then I had to get a better job so I gave up again until last summer (about 12 Years). I don't think I will ever get really good but I have a good time playing and I can still learn. I watch Youtube videos by GM Simon Williams and The ST. Louis Chess Club. I find them helpful, to hear the thinking of the GM's and IM's. That is something I never could get as a kid.

 

 

I think chess.com is great, I never knew all these options for analysing games and moves existed before. Playing chess again has certainly increased my level of thinking at work as well.

Possibly helpful:
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
https://www.newinchess.com/Shop/Images/Pdfs/7192.pdf
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1949)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://www.mongoosepress.com/excerpts/OpeningsForAmateurs%20sample.pdf
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf

I have played chess for more than 45 years. But during that time there have been long spells when I have hardly played. But I always come back to the game

Blitz isn't well recommended to start with, longer games improve your overall thinking and analysis first, then you can start worrying about speed.

I also am making a come back after many many years. Well, I never stopped playing, but I stopped studying and trying to improve. I played a lot of tournament chess back in the late 70s, thru the 80s and early 90s. Then business took over my life, but I played blitz on FICs almost everyday for the last 25 years or so. Then just recently decided to get back into serious chess. Luckily I stored all of my books and chess sets and I'm having so much fun going through all of my books and notes again. I'm finding that after playing blitz for so long, my tactics slipped somewhat, but after a couple of months of nothing less than 15 minutes games, my tactics are coming back, and I'm really enjoying the renewed interest. So much has changed...

Betting.

The problem with online chess betting is engine use, of course.

Indeed. I program computer code in Microsoft Visual Studio. Chess engines and Graphical User Interfaces are available in source at github. Then off to sourceforge for a plug-in (to whatsapp) and phone emulator (so you think I am on my mobile). Bingo GM quality moves hitting your phone from my computer at about ten seconds a move assuming you are still in the game after the opening while I play the guitar.

 

The interesting thing is, my brain doesn't have a lot of "RAM". I can't plot out too many moves in my head before things get murky. In normal chess I am now rated at about 900 but when I tried Blitz I was at 1250 after a few games on the first day. I won several games because I had 4 or 5 minutes to spare when my opponent ran out of time. I am trying to 'slow down' though because the quick moves, in a long term game, just don't do it.

This was an epic battle

 

 

Thanks, still trying to work on taking my time to move. Being in New Zealand means often making moves in between work and that often ends badly.