How do I know my status?

yeah I wanna be pretty good at not tournament material but I wanna play it for recreation 

Colin look I see your current misconception, when you try to win a Queen:

There are several ways in which white can try to capture the black Queen, but when you attack it directly, it will bite back and you end up losing your piece and the opponent wins!

So you have to be more sneaky in your ways, the direct approach doesn't work. If you attack your opponent's Bishop with your Bishop, he will simply be able to capture your one and you end up with nothing. However if you attack your opponent's bishop with a knight, your knight will be safe from the bishop's range. Like here:

Now what was the correct way of going about capturing the Queen in the first diagram?

I don't know :(

Easy fellah! I was trying to help. He stated:

"I understand the object of the game and what all the pieces do but I can't think on how to lure the computer into making moves that I can exploit."

I gave a concrete example of how to exploit the computer's weak play.

Try not to see the worst in people, eh?

Hint: putting a king in check forces the other player to either block the attack with another one of his pieces or move his king out of harms way; if the attack cannot be blocked he must move his king which could expose another one of his pieces to the attack :) (also, if you click the analyze button next to the chess board above it will open up that board and allow you to test the waters with different moves and tactics.)  btw, welcome to the game and chess.com!

:) do I move the queen to F 8?

Queen to f8! You haven't understood the idea of the game yet. In many other games this would be the way to go. But Queen to f8 runs into King takes Queen.

I know :) Me too! But the guy obviously doesn't understand anything and I mean anything of the mechanics of chess, so showing something brilliant will just run into him not understanding. He knows how the pieces move but he doesn't understand a thing of going about capturing/defending pieces. At the moment he just places his Queen next to the other guy's Queen and hopes he will be able to capture on the next move.

To begin with, you should get familiar with the value of the pieces:

A knight or bishop (a minor piece) is worth approximately three pawns.

A Rook is worth approximately five pawns, however two minor pieces are better than a rook and a pawn.

A queen is worth approximately 9 pawns.

In your game, you missed the opportunity to win lots of material ( ie. exchange your pieces of lower value for your oppoment's pieces of higher value) many times. You should always try to win material (unless there is an obvious trap involved).

Also, in the opening, try to move your pawns and pieces towards the center of the board.

This is of course only a variation, there hundreds of them.

You might want to get the trial 30day membership and solve the low level chess mentor problems. They explain lots of stuff.

I think the trial membership is 7 or 10 days

Hey guys I did not give up and kept trying! And I finally beat the computer on silly. Even though it's a small victory it does feel good. I posted the game any tips!

I'm impressed, much much better. Only one small hiccup here. It is again some misconception. On move 34, Qa8+ is not a good move: the Queen has no backup from the other pieces. The Black King can just take it. I give the position one more time and now you tell me with what move you can actually mate in one:

OK, look at it and tell us what you think. Here is an idea how Qa8 is actually mate. You just have to make your pieces work together

Gosh that is a good move (using the rook) like that, I'm trying more and more to focus on things like that! Thanks for your help it means alot!

Good, keep coming back to it and you'll become better and better - and the game will become more and more enjoyable. But watch out, chess will prove to be frustrating as well. Especially if you lose a few games in a row - which will happen quite a lot no matter how good you are. Don't worry though since at the moment you're in the exploring phase which allows for a lot of pleasant discoveries. :-)

Yes he was listening, just look at the follow-up game. Only that 34th move was a minor accident but overall I think the did tremendously well.

Sorry I don't know that Dangerfield guy. Lack of cultural background? :/

To clarify, that post was meant for both Prawn and Colinc.

Check out this one, it ended in a draw only b/c I was trying to see how many queens I could get at the end instead of trying to get a mate.

The game froze and I wanna finish it

Ok guys best game yet tell me what you think!

Assuming you were white, you overlooked your opponents threats and had mate in one for multiple moves. I'd suggest analysing this game to see your mistakes