During this slow time of the year, I’ve spent far too much time playing chess on Yahoo! games. I’d really like to learn how to play better from a book or some inexpensive software. Where should I begin? I think my main problems are getting too agressive early and not knowing anything about the endgame. I’ll often make a stupid mistake in the first 20 moves causing me to lose an important piece or else I’ll spend 40 moves trying to checkmate the other player and end up in a draw with no pieces left.
There are lots of chess sites on the web that can help you. The archive of the Novice Nook column on chesscafe.com is probably a good place to start. It’s a whole column about the kind of question you’re asking, and there are a few years of back articles available. And it’s free, so I’d say it’s a good place to check out. Also ChessGames.com and Chess.fm are interesting sites. Some of their stuff will be too advanced for you, but it can still be good to skim over these more complicated topics just to have them in the back of your mind.
I haven’t lost a game in 32 years, since I quit playing chess.
First, the necessary disclaimer: playing chess is a gigantic waste of time and is probably bad for your emotional well-being.
Second: I’ve heard from a friend of mine that the best way to get good at chess is to study opening books and play against chessmaster (which these days has an incredible array of customizations for your opponent, not to mention opening book tutorials).
Personally, I always sort of figured, why even bother trying to get good at it? You can always find a well-matched opponent at yahoo chess, and that is all you need to make it fun. Why make it hard on yourself?
Moving thread from IMHO to Cafe Society.
Also, should I resign a game when I know I’ve lost unless my opponent makes a major mistake? I’ll sometimes send a message to the person I’m playing asking them if they want to continue to play. I think I know enough to know that I’m not good enough to win on my own skills after I’ve made a major mistake. However, the endgame practice is good for me.
Actually, it’s next to useless for a novice player to study opening books. They just don’t have enough background in chess theory to understand the material. Why is one particular line better than another? What do you do if your opponent goes out of book early? What if he does something you’ve never seen before? Beginners haven’t reached that level of understanding yet. IMHO I wouldn’t bother studying openings beyond some basic strategy unless you are a Class B or better player (and if you don’t know what that means, you’re not there yet).
Also, beginners generally should never resign. You can still try to salvage a draw through a stalemate or something. Also, you never know when your opponent will make a major blunder. In fact, novices often grow complacent when way ahead in material and start making stupid mistakes (knight forks are easily overlooked, BTW…). Whatever you do, remain calm and don’t panic. Games between masters are often decided by a single pawn, but novices frequently lose games even with an overwhelming material advantage.
I would recommend The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess. Despite the name, it’s probably the best introductory book to the game of chess available. It’s written in a casual, easy to follow manner, and will give the beginner enough of a broad background in chess tactics and strategy to immediately improve their game, and be able to move on to study more advanced material if they wish. Read this book and do all of the exercises, and it will help your game immensely. Really, I can’t say enough good things about this book. If you only read one book on chess, make sure it’s this one.
After that book, I would recommend focusing on tactics. For the vast majority of games played by players below Class B, games are lost by tactical blunders rather than won through strategic brilliance. Good books I’ve read in this regard are Chess Tactics for Students (general tactics and IMHO the best), and Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess (focuses more on the endgame and mating combinations). Finally, Chess by Laszlo Polgar is a book consisting solely of over 5000 mating puzzles. Plus, with it’s wide black spine and the word “Chess” in big gold letters, it looks impressive on the bookshelf (I managed to find this book on the bargain table at Barnes and Noble for $5.00).
Besides tactics, you should also learn some basic endgames. Forcing mate with a rook and a king, gaining and maintaining initiatve, pushing pawns, and forcing stalemate are all useful things to know.
Finally, play as often as you can. Play against both people and computers. Humans and computers play the game in a fundamentally different way, it’s good to get practice against the different styles. Chessmaster 9000 has pretty good tutorials also, so it makes a good study companion. In tournament mode, it will also track your record and match you to opponents of comparable strength, which is nice.
Sorry I got so long-winded, I’m just telling you all the things I wish someone told me when I first decided to seriously study the game. I hope this helps.
One more thing I forgot to mention. I don’t know what sort of timing conditions you play with online, but you should try to play games with slower time controls at first. It will give you more time to think, which helps when you’re trying to use concepts you’ve just learned.
Offer a draw.
Great post Jet Jaguar. Some excellent suggestions in there.
I’ll add a couple tips:
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Via Yahoo, send your game results to your email address (There is an option (a button) after each game to submit).
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With your electronic game library at hand, go over games that you lose. Play through the games and learn from your mistakes. Look for missed good moves.
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After 1.e4 e5, always play 2.f4! The King’s Gambit rocks.
Have fun