Hi! I struggle with the same problem. I could help you. I could be your chess coach. Or if you're better than me, then you could be mine.
It doesn't really matter how much time you spend or on what. You'll improve anyway. But it's difficult to do alone.
Chess is a game where knowing the basic knowlege goes a long way. I suggest reading ONE good book will start you on your way. I believe the best choice is "Learn Chess--A Complete Course" by Alexander & Beach. You can get a used copy for about $5.00 from Amazon.com.
I think a diamond membership on this site is the way to go. I hadn't played much more than a dozen games in the last 40 years before deciding to give it another try. Everyone agrees that tactics is the most important component of a relative beginner's training. There are other sites with tactic trainers of course, but ChessMentor has all sorts of tactical training course that help with the kind of "pattern recognition" that you need to get better. Courses in forks, pins, skewers, discovered checks, capture checks, deflections, etc. It's billed as a strategy course, but it is more like a teaching encyclopedia of chess. You can pick and choose the order of the course you want to study and go from openings to endgames to middlegame strategy, etc. I know it's a $100, but really it is worth it. Oh, and we haven't even talked about the library of absolutely killer video instruction that is available. Hundreds of 20 to 30 minute videos on every aspect of the game from incredibly gifted instructors and with several more being added every week! If you're serious about learning chess.........
Thanks I find your advice really useful
For beginners, chess study is typically devided into two major categories:
Board vision naturally refers to your ability to 'see' what is going on in the position and what could happen in the future, e.g., looking ahead to the end of an exchange to see who comes out ahead, spotting multiple move combinations, avoiding blunders (huge one), ect. You must improve this ability if you ever wish to truly get 'good' at chess, because all the chess knowledge in the world won't help you if your board vision stinks and you keep blundering pieces away.
It has been said that a master's vision should be developed to the point where he can play an entire game blindfolded. And certain great players throughout history have been known to have played multiple games simultaneously while blindfolded!
To improve this skill, you simply have to work chess puzzles (with your mind only, no piece movement allowed. Tactics trainer is good for this), do vision exercises (moving a knight around the board with only your mind, possibly with obstacles to make it more difficult, for example), and most importantly: play a lot games!
And as far as basic knowledge and tactics go, you can get that from a beginner's chess book. There are hundreds of them out there--you just have to be diligent and dedicated enough to read one.
Tanks for the good advice; I have actually joined Hastings Chess Club and got a lot of help and support from senior chess players. They have been exceptionally patient and frienly, giving lots of encouragement.
So far I'm working on a schedule of spending 1 hour on chess mentor, 1 hour on tactics trainer, and then I'm thinking an hour of playing/game analysis. I'm not sure how long it will take me to get through mentor but when it's completed I think I'll use that time to focus on figuring out an opening repetoir, work through strategy and tactics books, review masters games/watch videos, and maybe reviewing certain sections of mentor.
Anyone have ideas for how I can improve this 3 hour plan? I want to start using the computer workout but not sure where to start on there.
Still think that you should work on some basic board vision excersises, maybe just a couple minutes a day even.
http://www.chessfornovices.com/developingchessboardvision2.html
What would you say is the best place to practice getting board vision? I am using tactics trainer but too beginner to get to the hard ones yet. It deffinitely seems like a real important skill I'd like to develop.
Thanks for the link, looks like their teaching programs are only for children though.
There is also an adult chess tournament that is held there on Friday nights. That was the point of the link.
I am currently attending chess tournaments every Friday evening, it has helped me a lot and I have learnt a lot from my mistakes as well as getting tips from strong players also developed board vision that I was bad at.
hello Estragon, your comment was very helpful. i'm in the same situation as Erostratus with the difference that 2 months ago i didn't even know the basic rules of chess, so i'm such a beginner.
i've been looking for methods of recording my games for analyzing them before but the best i came up with so far was screen video recording, with is not the best method really since it takes too much space on the HD if i set it to a decent video quality.
but in the quoted line above you're saying there's an alternative method. how does it work? does it enables me to review my chess.com games later at any time? do i need a software for that? would scid be such a software?
Sngus I think he means just saving the annotation of your game then putting it in a software program like Fritz that will analyze it.
Sngus I think he means just saving the annotation of your game then putting it in a software program like Fritz that will analyze it.
that i don't know lol
anyway, i think i found the software i was looking for. i realized i can download my games' data from chess.com and review them in this program. and there are some resources that will help me detect my mistakes during the game (if any) and see what i should've done instead, step by step. i think it will be very enlightening. still i only ran this program once and i had no time to explore it any further so far, so i really can't tell how helpful it is by now.
i don't know about this fritz you've talked about. i'll check it out ass soon as i can.
you know, the best about chess is that there are ways of getting better by having fun.
good thread btw
I can devote 1-2 maybe 3 hours a day and am not sure where to start. How much of my time should be spent playing vs studying. How much of my time should be spent on tactics vs strategy. Then what percent should I spend on opening, middle, end.
What are the best resources for learning these various areas? I'm open to buying books, software, and am going to get a membership here. I just want to make sure I'm spending my chess time as effectively as possible and not studying the wrong things, playing too much or too little vs study, or using less than optimal educational sources.
Thanks for any help :D
Improving your tactics and board vision is important, but strategy and knowledge of positional play is definitely what you should be concentrating on.
You don't actually need to calculate endlessly every turn, just recognise the conditions required for tactics/combinations to exist:
1. Exposed King.
2. Unprotected pieces.
3. Inadequately defended pieces.
Understanding positional and strategic play will help you in all phases of the game. It will allow you to 'read' any position at a glance, which, I can tell you, is revelationary - a whole other world of chess will open up to you.
The concepts of positional play are surprisingly simple: just two or three principles per piece. For example, the Knight: 1. Needs advanced support points in pawn holes, 2. Prefers closed positions, 3. Good blockers of passed pawns.
Learning positional play is going to give you the most bang for your buck in my opinion, and improve your enjoyment of the game the most because of the understanding it brings, and the heavy lifting (calculation) it removes.
Here's how I would approach it:
1. Play, play, play, play.
2. Continue to practice your tactics (this is something you do constantly, in the background, while studying chess).
3. Concentrate, almost exclusively, on positional play, and reading chess positions. First learn the concepts - I recommend Jeremy Silman's How To Reassess Your Chess (I actually found Yassar Seirewan's Winning Chess Strategies [same info] easier to read, but it does not contain Silman's Thinking Technique, which I find essential to delivering the concepts to the board in my games). Second, find annotated master games and see if you can understand certain positions throughout the game before looking at the annotations. Do this over and over and over until your notes start to match the annotations (this won't happen at the beginning).
4. Learn, thoroughly, only the basic endgame concepts, such as which pieces can mate a lone King, the King/Rook vs King ending, the Opposition, some simple Pawn endings, etc.
5. Do not rote learn openings, but do learn the basic opening concepts of central control, King safety, development. In other words, understand the openings, don't memorize - serious opening study is only for master level play.
I can't tell you how enjoyable chess becomes once you understand. Even the games you lose are enjoyable because all you're interested in are all the fascinating positions throughout the game. Your games become this constantly morphing whole art piece, not just a cheap display of disconnected tactical parlour tricks.
I posted a list of further reading in another thread if you're interested:
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/recommended-chess-books-for-players-rated-1900
Thanks alot B1 for your advice. Do you think I should spend much time analyzing my own games at first? I got Fritz but haven't figured out how to use it yet.
Thanks alot B1 for your advice. Do you think I should spend much time analyzing my own games at first? I got Fritz but haven't figured out how to use it yet.
You can't really analyse until you're fully versed in what you're analysing. You will also struggle to improve for the same reason. Learn the positional concepts, then analyze every position put in front of you.
Be careful with chess computer programs, they can be deceiving sometimes, advising best play that may not be the best in live human play because it follows a line that requires 10 consecutive perfect moves to be correct, all other lines leading to disaster, which, of course, the computer can see easily. I have Fritz, but I just use it as a tool to speed through saved games. I would get by with the chess.com analysing tool just as easily. Fritz does have some advice features, but it's fairly primitive as far as I could see. Better off learning the concepts then going with your own judgement - a computer's never going to be able to match that one-glance full-board assessment you get from learning the concepts yourself.
Hi, I played alot of chess and read a couple books about 8-10 years ago but have hardly payed since then so I'd consider myself almost starting from scratch. I apologize if this thread gets done all the time but was wondering what you guys think the best overall method and alocation of time for a beginner to improve, what do you wish you would have done when you started out?
I can devote 1-2 maybe 3 hours a day and am not sure where to start. How much of my time should be spent playing vs studying. How much of my time should be spent on tactics vs strategy. Then what percent should I spend on opening, middle, end.
What are the best resources for learning these various areas? I'm open to buying books, software, and am going to get a membership here. I just want to make sure I'm spending my chess time as effectively as possible and not studying the wrong things, playing too much or too little vs study, or using less than optimal educational sources.
Thanks for any help :D