When Did Chess First Make Sense?

When did chess first make sense to you?

It made sense to me when I realized that the person who controls the greatest number of squares wins the game.

Knowing less than one percent of what it takes to control these finite number of squares, with near infinite possibilities, playing this game well is completely beyond my grasp. 

After this opening, you play Black and I'll be happy to play White.  Black does introduce a novelty in this opening system with 5...Nf6! 

hmm I'll let you know ...

When did it make sense, as in, when did I start feeling like I knew what I was doing more often than I felt like I was lost?

I dunno.  I still regularly feel lost :)

Pawns were always troublesome for me though.  Knowing when to capture and with which one, when to leave the tension.  When to advance them, when to leave them back.  It was all very confusing and troubling.  "Pawn Structure Chess" and endgame study helped that.

I still have fears of fundamental unknown things... such as attacking.  I never did make it though "Art of Attack" and I'm often a poor defender as well.  That may be my last basic type of position that makes me uncomfortable.  IQP out of a panov especially, I simply can't play those positions well at all.  Now a paint-by-numbers attack against the pirc with g4-h4 and the like, no problem.  Greek gift, I'm ok with that too.

Anyway all this to say, I'm not sure any level of player will tell you all of chess finally "makes sense" to them ;)  My first revelation came early though when a player told me, it's not how many pieces you have, but what they're doing, and that I shouldn't be focused on just winning pieces.  This is one of the things that sparked my interest.

Ok, I'll play 11...c6

I see the problem. Thank you.

I'm not thinking about chess making absolute sense, as in, game solved. A few qualifiers are in order.

When did chess first make enough sense to where most of the time, you can find a good move in not all, but many chess positions? 

Is that enough qualifiers?

Can we make this a rated game? I could use a few points. 

Oh my! 11...c6 is not the best move. You still struggle with pawn moves.  Better is 11...a6. After 11...c6, White can break with 12.e6! Black is busted.

Only very very recently have I gotten to the point where I feel like my moves have some semblance of an idea behind them.  I have a vague idea of a game having a thread to follow, even if I don't know what the hell it is in many cases.

Like looking through rough glass into a snow storm... I think I see a figure, is it a person, a bus?  maybe it's nothing at all.  This is a big improvement however from not even noticing it was snowing outside

I expected e6 -- I planned 12...f6

Objectively black is lost, so I have to try something more active than a6 and hope you wont find the best responses along the way :)

Oh, there was a time when I was around 1200 USCF or so (hadn't played in any tournaments yet, just guessing on strength) and I thought I was pretty good, and could put up a respectable game against anyone.  So I guess it really depends on a person's perspective as well as experience with the game.

Wrong.

Here's how it goes:

 The person who makes the least blunders ( see hanging pieces and tactics for more information ) wins the game. In case there are none:

The person who makes the least mistakes wins the game. In case there are none:

The person who makes the least inaccuracies wins the game.

Blunder > Mistake > Inacurracy, on a scale of how bad the move was.

11 moves and black is still in the same  place

Actually, it's the player that controls all of the squares in the vicinity of the enemy king who wins the game.  You can give your opponent complete control of the queenside as long as you mate his king.  Steinitz was quite happy to suffer along with a cramped but sound position, and the hypermoderns like Nimzowitsch and Reti would quite willingly let the enemy occupy the centre with pawns, as long as they retained a chance to break their pawn centre up later.  I do agree though that having your pieces in the centre allows you to get to one side of the board or the other quicker, but I am not sure if space is everything.  King safety, material and open lines for your pieces are obviously pretty key.

Yoikes!  That's what I was afraid of.  There's no hope...

I play chess because i dont understand chess, i will keep on playing until i solved chess.

Just like in a online riddle example. Keep going until it is solved, and then never look at it again.

But chess can't be solved, and thats why its such an amazing game.

1) Chess first made sense when I played through games of Capablanca.

2) Then I played through games of Alekhine and became confused again.

Excellent comments by all.

It's really not an easy game to make sense of, and for 99.99% of the chess players on the planet, it will never make a whole lot of sense.

But I don't like to feel confused, so this is what makes sense to me about chess right now. 

1. The goal is checkmate.

2. Control more squares than your opponent.

3. Improve on tactics, which is 99% of chess, converting the control of more squares into material gain and ultimately checkmate.

Why do so many find chess so complicated.

Do you think that chess makes almost total sense to a player like Gary Kasparov? Do you think he his finally bored with the game by now?  Does he play any other mental sports, like GO?

but chess is complicated! look at all of this stuff you have to read (and study) sheesh.  I wish it was as easy as 1.2.3 :P

No arguments, just seeking to understand.

I recently played a game where I was relentless in chasing down my opponent's early queen excursions, targeting many weak squares and causing this person to fumble and lose the game.

So, was this queenmate? My opponent resigned.

Nothing makes sense except of the fact that nothing makes sense even though it doesn't make sense it's self.

/confused

I never understood chess and I probably never will...