learning chess

[WiredSevens]

Chesscafe.com is a great site and Novice Nook by Dan Heisman is a great column.

Chessbase.com is a great chess news website and it has a free database where you can find games based on position or by player's name/s.

[g-bebe]

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Actually I'd try http://www.chessworld.net. It cost like $24 a year, but it's a server where you play games with 2,5,7 or more days per move. For learning it's great because you can take the time and really look at your position since you usually have a few days to make a move.

If you want an invite send me a PM.

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ICC has correspondence games as well. if you're going to pay online, you might as well do it on the best server available, which is the ICC. it literally has every option available, it's only downside being poor bughouse support

[KingDan]

The first thing is to obviously play a bunch of games. I believe there a bunch of good chess clubs throughout Cali, so I would definitely check out. Slower games are better because you can record the moves and go over the game again afterwards and look at your mistakes. Doing this with a stronger player can be useful because there is some stuff you just won't recognize/understand about the position.

There are some books worth reading with basic middlegame/endgame stuff. My first book was Weapons of Chess by Pandolfini. I've heard good things about Waitzkin's Attacking Chess but I don't remember it, it's been a while.

After learning a bit of the basics, the next step is probably to start playing over games of good players. While playing, you go through a mental list of ideas/patterns in a given position. When playing over good games, you see new stuff, some of which you will remember and be able to use is similar positions.

The first example that comes to mind is the thematic Rxc3 sacrifice


A lot of people focus far too much on the opening... don't. Until you get decent it doesn't matter all that much what you do and memorizing a bunch of lines is a poor use of time.

[LuckyDevil]

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A lot of people focus far too much on the opening... don't. Until you get decent it doesn't matter all that much what you do and memorizing a bunch of lines is a poor use of time.

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Terrific advice.

[garcia1000]

I used to play a lot of chess, but then I discovered poker.

Here's some advice which isn't useful to you, but may be to other rusty chessplayers:

Sick of having to play 1. e4 and having to memorize a zillion variations to defend against Sicilian, French, Alekhine's, god knows what else? Sick of having to memorize 15 moves into your 1. d4 variation? Play 1. c4!

The good thing is that in my experience, no one below FM level really knows what to do against this opening.

[Chesskid1]

read Reasses your Chess by Jeremy Silman. lol @ kingdan being in here, we play on the same chess server, rofl. true nerdbombers. anyways, read that book, it's the harrington of holdem on chess books, for realz.