Let's discuss age and learning to play chess

I lost the piece on 3...Nh6, I realized after the fact that Nf6 would have protected me just fine against his trick and allowed me to develop normally.  Move 17 was in the interest of destroying his castle. I figured my best chance was to play mistake-free for the rest of the game and I saw a way to provide him with a weakness (open file to the king, doubled f pawns), that would hopefully balance out his two piece advantage some. Then he made some mistakes that let me clear the board, and I think if I had to focus on two queens as well, I would have blundered eventually. I was playing nervous the whole game after the 3...Nh6 blunder.

Your math is sound, but if I'm already spending 30 minutes to an hour daily on tactics, surely it couldn't hurt to put some minutes of pondering into the openings too, right? Obviously in the meantime I'll keep playing using the basic principles, but is spreading my time over the two subjects really that detrimental as long as I don't neglect tactics? If anything I would suggest that currently my tactical vision far exceeds my standard of play in the opening.

That game was from today!  I don't know the time controls.  I drop pieces still too.  But the Bg4 move!  You'll play much better if you just think in the opening, "I want to develop my pieces toward the center as quick as possible."  And after everyone of your opponent's move, "What is the threat?"  There's no reason to be nervous.  It's not an over the board tournament game.  I joined chess.com for Chess Mentor.  Look at the reviews! http://www.chessmentor.com/reviews.html

Oh yeah, I literally just played that game like 30 minutes ago. All of my games are Live Chess 30 | 0. I've tried blitz and I just hate it. I wouldn't mind playing a few correspondence games but right now I get my fix for those with a friend of mine on Chess With Friends.

As for Chess Mentor, I think I'll be looking to get a membership once I have some spare money. It looks great.

Age and learnng to play chess?

I feel no one below the age of 6 months should be forced or encouaged to learn play chess,  per Mark Twain's teaching-pigs-to-sing syndome.

This might be a mistake, ask Bobby Fischer.  If someone says to me, have you ever played the Pirc?  I would not know what that is and I don't want to know.  I want to play every game as uniquely as possible.  I believe this is a good strategy for the long term.  If you eat popcorn every Tuesday, it cannot be said you have a good memory for what you eat on Tuesdays.  It just means you know your habit for Tuesday.

I started on this site exactly the same way about 2 years ago, learned as a kid to move pieces etc.  I even used to play with a beloved grandfather!  So the parallel is near perfect for age, etc., except I've now been at the hobby for two years--I'm a bit ahead of your.

In that time, I've gotten way more comfortable with chess.  To me, comfort is key for enjoyment, and enjoyment is all I want.  My rating has improved by several hundred points along the way as a result, too, but that's mainly just a side-effect to my mind.

Getting comfortable for me involved:

1.  Having a good, small, flexible opening repertoire, especially with black.  I shifted through a lot of openings, but I've settled in with Indian Games and the Pirc.  This allows me to have very little memorization, but have playable responses to literally all of white's openings.  I don't know the theory very deep, but the themes of all my defenses are similar, so I can feel my way to enjoyable games most of the time.

With white, I like to play 1.d4, English, or Zukertort.  These help keep theory light in the same way.

That's good at this level, because I agree with others who have said not to focus too much on opening theory.  This leads me to point

2.  The most important thing that helped me was playing 3 day chess here, looking back at my games for mistakes.  Play play play.

3.  Book-wise, I've felt that I could learn the most from books regarding the end-game.  This is the part of chess that feels most esoteric to me, and most amenable to book teaching.  In other aspects of the game, books seem less helpful to me.  Tactics tools are most helpful for the middle game, I find, and groups on this site have been my biggest assets for learning openings (join a group themed to an opening you like, play some vote chess, learn like crazy).

You literally just pointed out everything I've been trying to do to improve over these few weeks. I've got CPT and I've been working on a small simple repertoire. Lots of DVDs and Youtube videos, a few books, and tons of tactics.

I feel like it's working for me in spades, and much like you, comfort has been my main goal. If I can develop soundly, I feel like I have good footing for a comfortable middlegame, so learning a few simple opening sequences has helped me a lot, alongside obviously being able to spot much more complex tactics than I could before I started doing dozens of puzzles a day. I think my voraciousness for study will probably wear off a bit, but the progress is definitely there to be had if you're enthusiastic. I can say that even from my very short experience so far.

Hi Matt, yes! If you go to the GlassHouse (Wetherspoons between Fye Bridge and Norwich Cathedral http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-glass-house) on a Tuesday or Thursday morning from about 09:30, and quite often on a Monday similarly, you will be made welcome. There are some good players there, including some County players, a good range of ability including some weaker players such as myself. Go in the front door and we are in the room on the right. Sit down to watch and you'll soon be offered a game, there is a lovely atmosphere and they are a friendly lot. It's supposed to finish about 12:30pm but quite often we are still playing well into the afternoon and the venue is quite happy for us to play as long as we like.

Another good place to play is Tuesday afternoon at the Forum Library from about 2pm (officially 2:15), the "Board Meeting". There are all sorts of other board games as well as chess. For chess there's a mixed ability range including quite often students from abroad, who are often very good players. As you go into the Forum, go straight on into the Library; if you go up the centre stairs and then turn left you'll find us. Chess sets are all supplied by the Library, but some of us prefer to bring our own.

I see that the Pig and Whistle on Westlegate, near John Lewis, is also advertising chess on a board outside but I haven't yet investigated that to see when it's on. http://www.pigandwhistlenorwich.co.uk/facilities.html