28 Feb 07
Heya All,
Been playing for years, never in a club or played in tournament, but I know the basics.
I've played 24 games here so far and in each of them I seem to hit a wall after the initial opening moves. I am usually defending myself, as white or black (i.e. reacting to the other players as opposed to initiating) and I am often clueless about what to do next and therefore just pick something because I 'have' to move. (never good IMHO)
Can any recommend a book/on-line resource which can get past this frustrating stage in my chess education
Thanks
Steve
28 Feb 07
Originally posted by SPDChessMaybe this will help you a little bit: http://www.chesstactics.org/
Heya All,
Been playing for years, never in a club or played in tournament, but I know the basics.
I've played 24 games here so far and in each of them I seem to hit a wall after the initial opening moves. I am usually defending myself, as white or black (i.e. reacting to the other players as opposed to initiating) and I am often clueless about what to ...[text shortened]... ine resource which can get past this frustrating stage in my chess education
Thanks
Steve
If you look on the chess forum you'll see various threads with names like:"How to get to 1400" or some other ratings and this to will help you a lot.
28 Feb 07
Originally posted by SPDChessYou have met the wall we all met - when just being able to play the moves, win obvious combinations, and defend obvious attacks is not enough to improve.
Heya All,
Been playing for years, never in a club or played in tournament, but I know the basics.
I've played 24 games here so far and in each of them I seem to hit a wall after the initial opening moves. I am usually defending myself, as white or black (i.e. reacting to the other players as opposed to initiating) and I am often clueless about what to ...[text shortened]... ine resource which can get past this frustrating stage in my chess education
Thanks
Steve
So you are bang on when you say you need to start reading. It depends on you as an individual as to how you will respond to various styles of author / book.
You now need to study tactics and strategy. Tactics are basically the tools in your chess toolbox which you can be on the look out for during the game (pins, skewers, back rank weakness, overload, deflection etc...). A decent short text for these is 'Chess Tactics' by Paul Littlewood.
Strategy is what will make you great though, and i find learning from the masters the best bet. Strategy is your overall plan, and the 'purpose and goal' of the moves you make. You have to take care not to try and interpret really complex games as they will go over your head and can be demoralising. Try 'Chess the art of logical thinking' by Neil Macdonald. This annotates Grandmaster games chosen for their ease of understanding (which is not the same as easy to replicate!), and it does it move by move, so you can see how they plan, and what they take into account.
For 17 quid this is a damn good starter and will probably add a couple of hundred rating points, if you combine it with reviewing your games and learning from where you went wrong (and right)