Learning

How did most of you chess.com members learn how to play chess? I was taught by my uncle when I used to live near him but now I moved and he left me with some chess books that are not too helpful. I would use all the helpful stuff on this website if I could persuade my mother into buying me a premium account but I doubt I can and I've looked for other chess websites but didn't really find anything overly helpful.

 So I was wondering if someone could suggest a book or a website that you used and found really helpful so that I can improve at chess. :P

Thank You

-444four444

This site is free and you can learn alot by going though the tactic exercises.....

http://chesstempo.com/

Thanks, that will be good for my endgames and such but I need to improve on my openings a bit more. :P

Does anyone have any other suggestions that maybe concentrate on opening games a little more?

I can't remember how I learned how the pieces moved, I knew that in preschool, castling I didn't learn untill I started playing chess the same time I became a member here.

I'm trying to learn with a few bought books, tactic exercises, books from the library and playing through annotated grandmaster games (preferably tournament books). And actually playing the game ofcourse. My improvement isn't exactly a shooting star, but atleast it's slowly moving forward.

Edit: Oh and take it from someone that has made the misstake, don't spend your time on opening study yet, it's a complete waste of time. Don't throw away 3months on it like I did.

For your opening, all you need to know are the general principals like quick development and control the center. 

The center is the 4 center squares, place a pawn there in the opening and try to maintain a pawn in one of those squares through the middle game... if you can't then often preparing a pawn advance into the center is a good idea.

Quick development means moving your pieces off the back rank (pieces in chess are defined as any of the chessmen except pawns and your king) and castling.  Connecting your rooks.  A common mistake among beginners is to attack after developing only 1 or 2 pieces.

For some examples of this, here's a good link http://www.chess.com/article/view/3-simple-opening-systems notice also not to bring your queen out early, and in the opening only 1 or 2 pawn moves are good rules of thumb.

Like I mention in your other post, a good starter book would be any of the books out of Seriwan's winning chess series or a book like Silman's amateurs mind which is always highly recommended.

Thank You orangehonda, you have been a lot of help :)

Chessmaster game taught me 14 months ago and here I am.

learned young from my father, played a little and never very strong. Now I play everyday on this site. There is no better way to learn than to play lots of games.