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Russell,
In regards to the "shorthand letters and numbers that let a person know which piece has moved where" The first letter like Ke4 refers to the type of piece that moved in this case it is the Knight. Also R for Rook, Q for Queen and so on. If there is no letter like e4, it just means a pawn moved to e4. (Pawns dont have a letter). The "e4" part means that the piece moved to row "e" square "4". If there is an x in the Combination like Kxe4, the x refers to that Knight taking the piece that was on e4.
Hope that helps.
Thats really it execpt for castling, King side castle = 0-0, Queen side castle = 0-0-0.
IN regards to the comment above the K is NOT for the knight it is the king that is represented with the K. example K=king,R=rook,Q=queen,B=bishop,and,N=knight.The are represented by their lower case file letter(a-h) and the rank #(1-8). example of a pawn move in short notation, e4= the e file pawn moving to the 4th rank,d5 the d file pawn moving to the 5th rank.and the captures are represented by an x. example of capture, cxd4=the c file pawn capturing the d4 Square,Bxh2=the bishop capturing the h2 Square,and the moves are basicaly the same except without the x. expample 1=the move#1 so goes like this 1 e4 e5 = whites pawn to e4 and blacks pawn to e5, 2 Nf3 Nc6= whites knight to f3 and blacks knight to c6, 3 Bb5 a6=whites bishop to b5 and blacks pawnto a6 and just to let you know this move variation i just gave is actually an opening called te Ruy Lopez indicated with white bringing out his light squared bishop pinning the c6 knight to the King. i hope this helps you a little.
1. Play some games. See how you do. You should be able to pretty quickly find people who beat you (no matter how talented you are).
2. Think about why you lost. For most people new-ish to chess the reason for losing is simply overlooking simple threats like the opponent can take a piece and you don't move or protect it. Or maybe you overlook forks or pinned pieces. Maybe you can't seem to keep your king safe.
3. Work on tactics. Do a lot of simple tactical problems (Chess Tactics Server chess.emrald.net is quite good for this).
4. Learn the principles of opening play. This is different from learning opening moves. Learn to get all your knights and bishops off the back row and into the game quickly -- an attack with one or two pieces will fail. Learn which pawn moves are useful and which are wasting time.
5. Work on tactical problems that require more thought. The chess.com tactics trainer is very goodf or this.
6. Checkmate puzzles 1-3 moves will help you see how to win games you're winning.
7. Learn the technical mates K+Q vs. K, K+R vs. K.
You don't have to do these things in order. In fact, #7 should be very early in the list. #6 is good to start on pretty soon too. You have to practice checkmating to learn how to win.
For amateurs the best return on your time spent is from studying tactics.
I was in your position about 8 months ago and I've pushed my rating from the starting 1200 to 1705. I mostly followed advice of people on this site:
1. Play games, esp. against people better than you. Download chesscat and go over each and every game, annotating all of your moves as you go. Figure out why you lost (for the most part, losses are due to simple blunders). When you think you played a great game but lost anyway, post the game on the site and ask nicely for feedback.
2. Buy a couple books of GM games and play through them with a board or the game explorer on chess.com. A popular source is "Logical Chess: Move by move" by Irving Chernev. Try to find it used to save money, or get it from you library.
3. Read Yassir Seirawan's books. Again, used books work if you can find them.
So far I've read: "Play Winning Chess" - this should be a quick read. It starts off with how the pieces move but the discussions of force, space, time, and pawn structure are worth going over.
"Winning Chess Tactics" - again, this was quick, since the best way to learn is by doing. I now work with tactics trainer to keep re-enforcing the principles.
"Winning Chess Endings" - will you take you much longer to go through. There are over a hundred diagrams and you could easily spend an evening on each one. I've started with a cursory reading of the book and I'm now going back and making sure I know the basics of each ending.
One final note is that you won't see the benefit of improving your endgame play right away. However, even at my level which isn't especially high I've eked out wins in the endgame simply because my opponent didn't know the basic principles. Learning endgames teaches you what the pieces are capable of and develops your calculating ability. You will find other areas of your game improving markedly by studying endgames.
Conversely, memorizing opening lines is not something you want to work on. As in any area of knowledge, memorization doesn't actually teach you anything because it doesn't create any deeper understanding. Looking up openings in turn-based chess on this site is perfectly kosher, but to be honest I don't even bother to do that anymore for the most part. I occasionally blow up in the first few moves but you will learn to recognize the usual trap lines pretty quickly. As someone noted above, learn the principles of opening play, not the specifics (as an added note I would say that by studying GM games you will pick up some basic variations of the standard openings without even trying).
Everyone's given great advice so far, but I'd just like to stress one thing. Play lots of games. Before you even buy a book or start doing tactics, just play several games. Have several slow games going, and play at least one live game a day. Then after a few weeks of playing you can start digging a little deeper.
Well Folks, thanks for putting in the time to help l'il old me. If any of you fancy toning down your A-game and having a game with me then you're more than welcome!
Eric: Cheers for the links, I've tried a few before but I found it a tad daunting!
Yitwail, Eiwob & Sniperghost: Thanks for the shorthand help.
Loomis - Thanks for the advice on how to approach Chess tactics - i.e. to focus on the principles, rather than just trying to remembering moves.
Direwolfe - I'll look up those books ASAP, hopefully I'll be able to pick them up Secondhand.
Staggerlee: I will try a few games this week. And any fan of Nick Cave's is a friend of mine!
Cheers
Russell
Hello,
I've not played chess properly since I was a teen (I'm now in my 30's), but I've always wanted to improve, and I think that this is a good enough time as any. Can any of you recommend any articles or books that might help me. I know how the pieces move etc., but general openings, tactics & end games are things I know nothing about (nor do I understand the shorthand letters and numbers that let a person know which piece has moved where).
I'm about to subscribe to the chess mentor, but I'm waiting for my new laptop to arrive (in about a week); and I'm hoping that this will help with my general playing. But in the mean time I'd like to get to know the basics before playing (and also to help read the game transcripts that are on this site).
If anyone can proffer any help I would be very grateful,
Thanks!
Russell