What's a good way to get started learning chess strategy?

Chess Guru

Play with people better than you without resenting them if you lose. Chess is also a battle of personalities and temperament, not just brain skills. Hope this helps.

try chess.com It has tutorials for absolute beginners and forums as well as live games and games against your computer. It has an iphone app too. See you there if you decide to try it!

I’ve been teaching chess to kids in after-school programs for years. And of course, you aren’t in 5th grade, but it helps to start at the very beginning. First and foremost, you’ve got to play a lot. Learn your tendencies and where they don’t work. Review famous games, blunders, ! moves, and understand why certain moves were done. Do tons of chess puzzles. Learn some various openings. Fail with them. Play with them. Learn with them. Use them. Learn the basics: forks, skewers, pins, discoveries, etc. Know all the rules, and know them well. Most people think the rules stop after learning how to castle, but there are deeper rules, such as the # of moves it takes for a game to end in a draw, three sets of mirrored moves ending in a draw, et al. Learn how to checkmate with just a few pieces. Study the pieces individually, and where how they best attack. Control the center. Don’t castle too early. Throw away everything you’ve learned and then learn what you want to, do what you want to. I got a very good base by smoking tons of pot in college and playing on Yahoo!. But I didn’t start becoming better until I became a “student” of the game. You’d be amazed at how much you learn my just observing. Totally all over the place, I know. Check out the NYTimes’ online chess blog, called Gambit. They post recent chess championships matches, and you can review them move by move. Sometimes each move will have commentary attached also. Look up the “immortal game” and the “evergreen game”; watch youtube clips of “chess tricks”....that’s a good start :)

I have Chessmaster and I like it. Also, there are innumerable chess books out there for all levels.

And if you’re interested in playing an online game by PM, let me know. I’m not that good, though, but I don’t cheat by using my computer program.

There are plenty of chess strategy books available, but as has already been mentioned, there is no substitute for playing A LOT.

I also spent a number of years teaching any of my elem. students who were interested to play (after school) and the ones who improved the quickest were those who played the most whether with their classmates or with someone at home. The skill level of their opponent was not as important as their tenacity in playing OFTEN and sticking with it.

Same thing with my nephew. He was only in 2nd grade and he kept begging me to teach him. So I did and only then was his father interested in playing with him. He got really good really fast and eventually ended up beating his dad on a regular basis. But this kid had always been obsessed with games. When he was only 3–4 yrs. old he would badger everyone he could to play Uno with him again and again and again.

He went on to become a regional 9 ball pool champ in his age group in his teens.

There is no substitute for playing as often as you can and reading the strategy books in between.

A touch of OCD is also helpful (as my nephew amply demonstrated to me :)

I checked a book out of the library when I was in high school that helped me a lot. I can’t recall the title of the book. The main thing that I got out of the book was to play aggressively and keep the other player on defense. Suddenly I could defeat most of the guys who were beating me. They seemed befuddled that they couldn’t beat me anymore. I really enjoyed that for sure.

Good luck!