Guidance for an Interested Beginning Chess Player

Hello Chess.com community! I've recently taken an interest to studying chess more extensively for the sake of intellectual development. Unfortunately, even if I wanted to develop my game further, I wouldn't know where to start. I have some questions:

1) What are some resources a beginner could utilize to improve their strategy/tactics/etc.?

2) Which resources are the best? In other words, which resources are essential for the competitive chess player to chew, swallow, digest, and spit back out at any given moment?

3) Any other general advice?

I would sincerely appreciate any advice. Thanks for taking the time to at least read this far!

jmikaelr1

This is sort of my soap box because I found this particular author to be so helpful.  I recommend reading Novice Nook as a beginning point.  I've taken up Chess off and on over the years.  During my current obsession with the game, I felt that there was so much Chess literature out there that I couldn't possibly digest it all and I wasn't sure which would be the most useful to me.  Since finding Novice Nook, I feel like my study is much more focused.  Also, Dan Heisman's book Back to Basics: Tactics is one I got from the library and then bought my own copy.  What sets this book apart from other tactics books is that Heiman begins with Counting puzzles (win more material than your opponent) and trapped pieces puzzles.  I think that a lot of beginners overlook these two concepts and then miss why a certain move is superior.  I haven't always understood that winning a bishop and knight for a rook is desired. 

I have a long way to go to being a good player (my live game rating is dismal), so maybe my advice isn't worth much.  But if you're a beginning player who's worried about information overload, I definitely recommend Dan Heisman as a place to begin.

I suggest first: Develop an unquenchable passion for the game, this will be useful when you are forcing yourself to study the tedious (though important) parts of the game.

Second: Study the basic tactics (others will come later), so forks, pins, skewers, removing the guard, overloading etc, plus the most frequent checkmating patterns.

Third: Study the games of Morphy and Anderssen to gain a feel of when these tactics work, which positional environments etc, and to gain a feel for the initiative.

Fourth: Get a coach (perhaps ME! :) ) to help you develop a reliable openings repertoire containing choices which will help develop your game more (for example sharp tactical openings).

Do this, it might take 6 months or a year of work, but you will be at least 1600 by the end of it.

Good luck my friend.

Brendan Norman