semi-beginner--feeling lost & intimidated

That's lame.

+1

Also, if I may add, pour a lot of energy into tactics.

Izzy Morphy's younger brother.

Wow, everyone stepped up and gave such lovely advice. One of my favorite threads ever! 

Also, look for a group of under 1200 players and join. You should find some players at your level and make some friends, as well. :)

Good luck to you. :)

Urban myth.

He is the result of gene splicing Paul Morphy's and Bobby Fischer's genetic material.

This was brought about by America's desire to produce another world chess champion. Although many billions of tax dollars were spent on the project, and alien technologies (especially the time-travel device held at Area 51) were employed, the experiment proved fruitless. Robert Morphy lives to this day, in secure lock-up on the Moon, whiling away his days playing Tic-Tac-Toe with HAL.

(Doggypedia)

You'll most likely be pretty nervous playing live for a while, so get started in order to work through that. It'll go away.... For the most part. Chess is fun. You'll get better mostly by playing, and then off time study and puzzles will improve your vision. You'll be super stoked when you see yourself improving and then you'll want to know how else you can improve. May take some time to get out of that beginner stage, though. Walls will be hit. Queens will be lost. Pieces dropped. Pawns backward. Royal forks. Unforseen batteries. Back rank issues. Blind spots. Stuff that never ends really.

Just relax and enjoy. Chess is a learning process through the entire journey. No one was born with chess knowledge. It had to be learned at some point. Chess is probably the only game where the more learn, the more you know of how little you know. 

In actuality, chess is more about eliminating your own weaknesses rather than building up a strength. It's an obverse effect - eliminating weakness in your game makes you stronger.

Play stronger players and "steal" their ideas to incorporate into your own play. That is how it has been done for hundreds of years. Be part of that tradition!

To the OP- moogyboy, if you want, send me an unrated 3 day challenge, I'd be happy to play a game, and we can talk about each move if you want. I remember fondly the spot you're in, you can become so much better easily at that point. Unrated will let neither of us care about whether we win or lose. The offer is there if you want!

"You will lose thousands of games before you are not a freakin' noob."

-Capablanca

You're kidding. Capablanca didn't really say that. Did he? "Thousands"? Oh man.....

Billy, I sympathise. I have just started out, end of october in fact. I studied hard (Idiot's Guide) and started off okay here in live games. But the truth has caught up to me, and after hitting around 1475 or so, I have since lost three/four games on the trot, including a check mate in nine moves...a variation on Scholar's mate. So I'm headed back to 1200 territory. But, I am also less nervous now when playing so it's more fun! So, short and sweet: keep at it, it will get better. Or at least, suck less. Haha

Play people not some damn' 'puter.

Doggy_Style wrote:

Don't talk, play.

Also I would make the point that while chess can make you feel intimidated if it was easy to master then no one would play it.

So here are (vaguely) the steps I went through at your stage (which was just over a year ago)

(1) Puzzles, tactics, etc. - see the patterns, watch the pieces move as you've never seen them move before. Don't memorize them, experience them. 

(2) Games - look at high level games from any era and see what you can see. There will be stunning sacrifices, incredible positional crushes, intricate endgames.....a giant all-you-can-eat buffet of every kind of chess imaginable. When you've done that, you'll begin to notice styles that you enjoy - pick the individual players you admire and look through their games. Let them show you the way to your own chess style. 

(3) Study! - Now you've played around, dropped your queen, and made some cute checkmates, it's time to get books. There are TONS of wonderful beginner books....I bought none of them and went straight to Romanovsky's 'Soviet Middlegame Technique' - an intense old chess classic (not the best starter). When buying books, it's good to get 'classics' as opposed to "Uncle Oswald's Guide to Superstar Grandmastering Chess Win"....there are lots of crappy game collections masquerading as actual books - be safe and invest in something well reviewed.

(4) Repertoire - Learn some openings....don't get carried away, but learn how to build positions that don't collapse within the first 10 moves or so. When you have a problem in the first 10 moves, you can fix it by simply going back over the position and NOT making the same mistake twice.

(5) Endgames - Probably the most important thing you'll be learning (outside of basic 1-2-win a piece tactics) is how to win (or draw) simplified positions. Plenty of basic endgame books exist, and they will (mostly) give you the same information. I bought Yasser Seirawan's "Winning Chess Endings" for $1 at a used bookstore, and it's done more for my chess than virtually anything else I've read. You will never be done studying the endgame, so start early and work hard. If people give you crap about being 'boring', laugh all the way to the bank as you queen a pawn and collect your win.

(6) Repeat: To improve, you will always need to do puzzles, study great games, read chess books, deepen your repertoire, and learn endgame techniques. Don't be discouraged by all of the losses - just repeat the process and you'll get better. 

You call yourself a man?  What is this?  You feel intimidated and like a toddler?  Man up and put in the work if you want to get better.

You have to play sometime, and you will  lose, and lose badly at first unless your the next Fisher. First, if you can not stomach losing at first, then this is not the game for you. Do not play blitz and bullet games at first------they are way to fast for a new person, you will not learn anything.  I would play correspondace  games, where you have time to learn  and also live games at a long rating, no quick games. I would also play the tactics trainer on here. 

hey everybody

First I want to say wow, thanks for the warm welcome and the great advice, I feel more at ease already. :-) I'll definitely take some of you nice people up on challenges and do those tactics studies. The whole studying for the game thing is pretty new to me anyway, so any advice I can get to bring me up to speed is appreciated. Also should explain that I'm not scared of the game per se or of losing--I expect to lose pretty regularly for a good long time, but don't mistake that for not wanting to fight for a win. It's just that so much of what I read and see is so far beyond me, everyone knows all this theory and a hundred different openings and all...I mean I don't even how to analyze a game or figure out which move is the decisive one, at least not yet. You know, being around giants is a little scary, that's all I'm saying. But I'm just happy that I've already met some cool fellow players who'll indulge my ignorance for a while. :-) I'm sure I'll have plenty more to ask about. Meanwhile, advice taken: I will play.

cheers

Billy S.

Okay, my bad. I meant Paul Morphy.

You're not making it any better.

Ummm...Paul Morphy was his name. You can Google it.