Help a chess noob

[econophile]

DMBFan23,

I've also taken a renewed interest in chess. I say renewed, because I played a little chess in middle and high school, but never on a team or anything.

When I began playing again, I was also overwhelmed by the amount of information on the internet and the sheer number of books about chess. Here's what I've found. Most sources I've read recommend beginners spend a lot of time studying tactics. Yassir Seirawan's "Winning Chess Tactics" is a good book for this since it explains how each tactic works and offers a good number of puzzles to test how much you've learned. After that, you may also want to buy a book full of chess problems. There are lots of these, just check out reviews at Amazon to see what people think of them.

For longer term plans, I looked at several "So You'd Like To" pages on amazon. Some of these list which books are appropriate for different level chessplayers. One that seems reasonable and doesn't list a million books is "So You'd Like to Train to Become a Strong Chess Player."

BTW, is there a chess forum equivalent of 2+2? I've Googled chess forums, but most of the ones I found had low traffic.

edit: Library is a good option. Also look at used book stores.