New player needs advice

I'm a new player who doesn't have any strategy.I need help.Anything would be useful to me so please post any advice you could give.Thank You.

                                        Emily out

Watch the everything you need to know series by Daniel Rench on this site. It is free for all members.

I liked the lessons in Chessmaster.

If you have a chance to get some chess books, I think Yasser Seirawan's Winning Series books are awesome for new players.  The guy has a knack for explaining things in a clear-cut fashion.

Thank you.I will check those out.

You can get the Chessmaster 10th Edition for about 10 bucks at OfficeMax and the lessons in there are more than adequate for a beginner.

You might try posting some of your games in the game analysis section of the forums for comments.

Your question is quite vague but in general I believe that the most important thing in the beginning is just to play a lot; if you still have some time/energy for more then doing some tactics exercices and learning some basics (for example from a good beginners book) about principles of piece development, tactical themes, endgames etc. could also boost your chess.

PLAY! Learning "on the go" is not a bad thing. What I mean is, chess isn't your job, is it? You can pick up quite a bit by playing and seeing how others use their pieces.

Good luck!

Play....Play.....Play!!!

Watch lots of games & everyday try to do some Tactics.

The Tactics Trainer here is up there with the best in relation to beginners.

I too was a beginner not too long ago. I found that playing without a clear purpose, and no guidelines did nothing for me. I began to improve when I started analysing games and reading openings and strategies. The "why" is the most important question.

I observed all of the games you've played here have been ten and fifteen minutes.  Chess is a game of strategy.  As a beginner it may be beneficial to play longer games which will allow you a better chance to evaluate the board and form a strategy, or at the least try to counter your opponent's.  In The Complete Book of Chess Strategy IM Jeremy Silman states (in the section on Time Pressure): "Your time is there for you to use!  Don't bash out one quick move after another.  Doing this will avoid time pressure, but your moves will be so bad that you will lose most of the games you play." 

I'm not sure about this. I think the time control for beginners should be long enough to allow brief consideration about every move (ie. not any mindless 1-minute games) and not loose on time but not necessarily much longer. My observation is that among beginners adding time into clock beyond certain point doesn't necessarily really increase the level of play as a they typically don't have the tools to device any deeper plans in any case. I would say the time control is only too quick if it feels like that.

I've played bit of go and go players use a wise saying that a beginner should loose his/her first 100 games as quickly as possible. I think that the same pretty much applies to chess as well. In the beginning the most important thing is to gather as much experience about the properties of the pieces, different recurring tactical motives etc. as possible and this can be done by playing relatively quick games. One should first aim at level where one move threats are noticed pretty much every time. Only after achieving that it's time to begin to think about the more advanced skills.

Read one or both of the following:

"The Most Instuctive Games of Chess Ever Played" and "Logical Chess Move by Move" both by Irving Chernev, both available at amazon and elsewhere.  

I think the advice by the following respondents is also worth paying attention to (not to imply other answers are not good but I liked these the best so far) Shakaali,  mark100net &   corrijean

Check this out since I presume it's relatively close to where you live  http://www.chess.com/club/the-st-petersburg-chess-club

Check out my endgame blogs, esp. GM Fines 15 Rules for the Endgame which you will find very useful advice for openings and middlegames too for the most part.

http://blog.chess.com/RoboRoy

GOOD LUCK!

Think for yourself, cast your own critical eye on every piece of advice or analysis you're given. Even those vaunted folks with their names highlighted in yellow make mistakes occasionally.

And most importantly...be confident

Here are a couple more points from Jeremy Silman's The Complete Book of Chess Strategy (again in reference to time pressure):

"Some players are well known as "time pressure addicts"--they seem to get an adrenaline rush from skating on the edge of oblivion.  These poor souls will always be in a frenzy because they have left themselves only one minute for ten or twenty moves.  No cure exists for them, but other students of the game should avoid this malady....

Pay attention to the game and get to the heart of the matter as quickly as you can.  After your opponent moves, always ask yourself, "Why did he play this?" 

Once you figure this out, don't react and forget about your own goals!  Try hard to create some plan that improves the position of your pieces.  Take time to accomplish these goals, but don't expect perfection.  Ultimately you must ask yourself, "What wonderful thing does this move do for my position?"  If you can't answer this question, then you must look for something else to do.

Practice will enable you to make these difficult choices (and to find whole plans) with ever increasing speed."

Furthermore do not be discouraged by your losses.  We learn more from defeat than we do from victory.  Best of luck.

Attack on the week side and block your opponents strong side. They sometimes switch up with a castle, just clear the channles for your bishops and hit them where it hurts. Think switching moves and purpose. Setup a switching move that captures a piece while putting them in check. 

Always remember, when your attacked by your opponent and you can retaliate, its not always in your best interest. When squeezed in to a hard spot look for a move that forces him to trade or make a hard decision about loosing a piece. In close combat where you queen is defending always think 2 moves ahead, chances are you opponent is looking to check you and capture your queen or rook. Being aware will help prevent this. Best of luck. 

Move enough pawns to control part of the centre of the board and let your Bishops out, then deploy your Knights and Bishops, castle, position your Rooks behind pawns that you can push into the enemy camp, and don't try to make your Queen do all the work.

Don't play to ridiculously short time controls.

Get stronger players to comment on your games after you've played a few.

Learn some of the basic mating patterns and how to win from, say, two pawns up in a simple ending.

Read books, but don't be disheartened if the tactics in master games are far too hard for you - they're too hard for most of us, if we're honest!

Learn simple tactics for winning material. Be aware of what "pin", "fork" and "skewer" mean - it helps to have labels for patterns that arise often and are important.

Also, read threads to find out if they're two months old before you waste time posting in them. :headdesk:

Haha! Good one! Although, Emily probably hasn't made it to Master level in two months, so you're probably ok............