1. Tactics trainer
2. If there's a specific skill you want to work on and there's a group for that, check it out
3. The opening book is nice for studying openings
4. Play lots of games :)
5. Ask some people to analyze your games (I personally go around to different forums or people inside my groups, or friends, and analyze their games when I have some time to kill).
Hope that helps!
I really like Yasser Seirawan's "Winning Chess" series of books. Will take you from absolute noob to mere beginner in short order. Play a lot of slow games too. Correspondence games are helpful as they prevent you from making dumb moves based o time constraints.
2. If there's a specific skill you want to work on and there's a group for that, check it out
Where does one find such groups?
2. If there's a specific skill you want to work on and there's a group for that, check it out
Where does one find such groups?
under share tab > groups and teams. Then you can search or browse teams!
Tactics are very useful.
First you get the basics of each: tactics, endgames, openings, and strategy.
Tactics - Themes and basic puzzles http://www.chesstactics.org/
Endgames - Basic mates and king and pawn endgames
Opening - Principals (development and castling) and 4 or 5 moves deep into the main lines of whatever you play (add gradually as you play games).
Strategy - Types of weak pawns and types of active pieces. E.g. backward pawn and rook on the 7th.
As you gather this info for yourself through either books or sites like chess.com be sure to play lots of games. Chess strength is practice not theory, so be sure to play often.
Once you know these basics (maybe you already do?) then you more or less just keep adding to these areas with the help of stronger players, coaches, books, and/or sites like chess.com. IMO Seirawan's series that was mentioned above is very good.
I think the Chess Mentor feature on this site is a fantastic educational tool. It is very much worth the subscription in my opinion. Just start at the beginning and go through all of the lessons (and do as many tactics puzzles as you can possibly stand per day). There is a large amount of very high quality educational materials right here on the site if you are willing to put in the time and have the desire to improve your game.
1. Tactics trainer
2. If there's a specific skill you want to work on and there's a group for that, check it out
3. The opening book is nice for studying openings
4. Play lots of games :)
5. Ask some people to analyze your games (I personally go around to different forums or people inside my groups, or friends, and analyze their games when I have some time to kill).
Hope that helps!
This is it, but possibly in the wrong order.
If you rating of ~1400 has stabilized, I would recommend to play games first, tactics second, and game analysis third (http://www.chess.com/forum/category/game-analysis, you will find plenty of people to help if you are ready to listen).
Things to avoid:
You can get it all from Chess.com--even a study plan:
http://www.chess.com/article/view/study-plan-directory
I've known the basic moves of chess for many, many years and I learned one opening that I basically always use from about 10 years ago. I never really got into studying, learning and playing much. I'm new to this site and basically would like to know, where is a good place to start to develope my chess playing skills?