Learning How to Learn

Here's my attempt at building guidelines at learning this dreadfully addictive game, starting with an example of life imitating art:  

Think of your learning path as a chess opening, in that a bad order of moves can slow your development and block activity and theoretical attacking lines.  Studying opening theory before developing your tactical vision and positional awareness is considered to be a slower route to improvement, maybe even counterintuitive.  For the moment, delay opening theory and stick to attack / control the center with pawns, develop your knights and bishops early, castle early, just to get yourself into a playable position, and worry about opening books in another phase of your learning.

People often say new players should study tactical motifs, but don't elaborate further; I recommend pins + skewers, deflections + attractions, discoveries, forks + double attacks, overloading, and undermining, as a primer.  All of them are equally important, in that the so-called "best" tactic is the one you are able to apply in-game.  Tactics aren't studied, more so than practiced.  It doesn't take much reading to understand what a pin is.

For a good free resource on chess tactics puzzles to practice on, you can check out chesstempo.com 

While you're practicing your tactics, ask yourself things like:

• Are there hanging pieces due to a pinned defender?
• Similarly, can you fork a piece because of a pinned defender?
• Can you set up a fork with a deflection?
• Can you create hanging pieces after a candidate line that wins you material?
• Are there forced discoveries due to king attraction (typically a result of a spectacular sac that lends material for a critical attack or immediate material returns)?
• Is there a sweet double attack with a discovered check?
• Can you combine deflection with pin to win material?
• Is your opponent shielding a target with a high value piece, and can you find a supported attack on the high value piece with a bishop or rook, winning you the target just behind it?
• That list is obviously not representative of all the things you'll come across.  As you get more experience, these questions will become more natural, and you'll most definitely come up with many of your own.  You will also be able to avoid tactical shots your opponents are hitting you with, because you'd understand what he/she is doing.

Once tactical shots become mechanical, it doesn't mean you will be able to apply them in-game.  You'll eventually ask, like some others have, "why can't I find tactical shots in my actual games?"  That's when you're ready to read into positional chess concepts, which Silman calls "imbalances", because establishing a strong position generates more tactical opportunities, whereas a weak position destines the player to passivity.  Activity and control of the position contributes to whether you will be able to set up these shots in-game.  To my limited understanding, no one actually plans tactical shots; they just occur to the player because of increased opportunity from a strong position.

After you've gained tactical vision and positional awareness, I suspect your rating will spike quite dramatically.

Once you've hit the wall with those two things, that's when you should look at endgames, because the concepts learned from that field is applicable outside of that phase of the game.  Conversely, opening theory applies for only the first 10 moves before games typically go "out-of-book."

Lastly, there's opening theory.  If you've gained tactical vision, positional awareness, and solid endgame tactics, what else is there but investigating the opening books!  All that knowledge from those three prerequisites should give you the ability not only to read the theory (which is what you're limited to if you haven't developed strengths in other areas), but to comprehend it.  For example, why a certain defense is structurally weaker than another in some area of the board, and why a certain set of pieces are more important for a theme that is often reached in some phase of that opening.  How certain variations lead to sharp and dynamic play, while others lead to slow positional grinds.  

What's your approach to learning?

Watch youtube videos of master games and solve puzzles.  A month of that produced pretty good results.