hi!

hi everyone-

i thought i'd ask all you kind experts how to learn the game correctly and efficiently rather than buy a bunch of books and get nowhere fast. the internet has a bunch of chess information but i wouldn't have a clue what i need to learn when and i hate spinning wheels on stuff. so cutting to the chase, knowing what you all now know in chess, how would you learn the game all over again?

thanks much,

Grillson.

i forgot i also wanted to ask how long does it take to learn chess at competitive level?

Get ready to lose a lot of games while certain patterns become embedded in your mind. Pattern-recognition is the key to understanding the variety of postitions which you'll encounter. The complexity of the game means that it will take a long time to become a strong enough player to win games with any amount of consistency. It is a game for a patient and determined person. Good luck:)

thanks, how did you learn? i played a game here and I have to say being timed is very difficult! I about ran out of time and made a foolish move that allowed my opponent a devilish trick to take my lady. i will have to get better with the timer AND chess!

If I were to start all over again, to maximize the time that I had available to me, no matter what stage of life I started, I would play slow games only and record them. I would read a decent chess book, which many will likely be proferred in a few moments. I'm not even going to mention any specific book. I would say don't study openings in the beginning. Learn tactics, and replay the games you lose to learn why you lost them, as specifically as possible, and then slowly study your book, which can be one obtained from the library, so cost is really not an issue. I think that's how I would start if I could start over.

....and wait 'til u win....u'll freak out w/ happiness !!

Now, grill baby grill.

                 And whatever you do, DON'T take any advice from RJC. He's a fracking IDIOT!

No books? Learn by trial and error? That seems like reinventing the wheel if you ask me.

He doesn't want you to reinvent the wheel, he just wants you to throw yourself under it.

This site has good beginner lessons. Just look up top & you'll see the LEARN tab, click it. There you'll see tactics, chess mentor, videos, study plans, etc. Definitely look at study plans but also browse around all of that stuff for a couple of hours to get an idea of all there is. The videos are good, check those too. Its a lazy way to learn but the vids are great. If you want to buy a membership you can watch thousands.

Edit: the time control you played your game with is fine, no need to go any faster. You were doing fine by the way up until the whole ripping your k side apart & the k/q fork thing. But I digress. Stay away from blitz for now & expect to hear from kasporovs sock puppet Chris de burger! Hahaha.

Will someone please play me chess

To quote some well known chess teachers:

"Some players prefer to learn through experience, most will never amount to anything." 

In other words play isn't enough, books matter.  You may not read Nunn's Understanding Chess Endgames but your opponent could have, apply principles in said position, and take home the point because you don't know the drawing method for example. 

Tactics matter too, CT-ART 5.0 has a nice collection of software including CT-ART Beginner, start there then move onto mating patterns then finally CT-ART 4.0.  CT-ART 5.0 is a package with all of it.  You might want to give Simple Defense a try and then graduate to Advanced Defense.  Convekta has some good software but make sure you write down your login and password so if you need to do a clean install you could still download your programs!  You may also need to download notation.  I have Chessbase and even needed to download third party notation to avoid &= bishop, |=rook and such. 

Damo can introduce you to some Kasporovs.

Lots of good advice here but the absolute best short term strategy is to nail down the following free chess mentor courses.  OK IMHO.  These are really well written and if you do these and review them over and over again until you can 100% most of the lessons, you will become a much better player.  In fact I believe chess.com offers a money back guarantee.  Oh wait, they're free...

http://www.chess.com/blog/webmaster/free-chess-mentor-courses

If you're a complete beginner, I'd suggest playing slow time controls, maybe playing online instead of live games, where you have 3 days or so to make your move.  Then you can slow down and learn patterns & tactics.  Tactics are very important, and learn how to use your pieces together. 

If you're first starting out, blunder prevention is probably the most important thing to master. Once you stop hanging pieces and pawns, your rating is guranteed to skyrocket. This means checking your position for undefended pieces and looking at each of your opponent's pieces to check their captures and checks.

After you've got that down, it'll be tactics tactics tactics. If you don't want to spend money, I recommend chess.com's and chesstempo's tactic trainers.

After that? Probably endgame technique and learning how to create a plan. Silman books should be of help here. Hope this helped!

wow- i don't have time right now to respond to each comment but i read and appreciate them all. thanks. i've attempted to load the game i played on here earlier. i agree i need more time for my moves 15 minutes went by to fast for me! ok hope i did this right...

now i'm obviously not a grandmaster so there are many boneheaded mistakes played here but if one or more of you kind fella's want to point out some of them and recommend alternative would be great. i'd tell you what my thoughts were but not sure how i would do that without being in person- seems like i'd confuse everyone. but in a generality of the game, i tried to get my pieces out into the center swiftly, move my king to safe corner, and try to keep my pieces joined together so no one was hanging dry. now the end, i missed a devilish trick my opponent played. i was focused to much on my timer being at a minute and lost focus on the actual game and that ended it all. suppose that is what pattern recognition and experience will do, help me see and formulate moves faster.

ok so i need to blunder check as best i can, then learn all those tricks and traps or tactics you call them, and then endgame technique (???). ok. thanks for the expert advice... i will be back with more questions i know it! i saw this place you can blog here...would it be helpful to blog my chess learning so it'd be easier for others to help me later on down the road?

Play slower than this game if you need to. Its more important to get it right (planning, tactics, move choices) than to be fast. So choose slower time controls.

Study basic endgames. Pawn structures. Tactics. High level master games that are explained well. Not just having the author claim white is better after blah blah is played & give various moves as proof. You want books that explain WHY. Explain IDEAS. Try reassess your chess by Silman along with his endgame book. Also, How to Open a Chess Game, by Evans. Logical Chess Move by Move by Chernev. Just a few titles of very good books.

wow my game here ^^ As I said after game the first thing you need to learn is time control. I'll add you as friend so we can play some unrated

I knew someone who was really good at chess and he taught to me what he was learning. Then I read a few books, memorized openings and got a little hand-held Excalibur-computer chess game. I played that all the time, mostly by taking back my moves until I won and then repeating it until I could win all the time without taking back moves. Then I just played chess at Internet chess sites for years. And that's how I learned!