Let's seriously start playing chess

Originally posted by pino69
OK. Now that it's one year I play chess reading books, attendin tournaments, playing in Internet sites (gameknot and this one for whom wants to challenge me) , it's time to start more seriously.

Can anyone give me clues on where to start from? Examples:

1) choose an opening for White and a Defence for Black and start playing only that one (which one i ...[text shortened]... of chess lovers, but very few are really interested, so no one could advice

thank you
pino69

Okay, I'll give it a go. I don't know what you've read or studies so far, but I assume you have mastered the basics.

I'm all for mastering a classic opening before picking up new, less well known lines. Many players start to blame their opening when they lose and start jumping from one opening to the next, never really learning any, and prolonging their own agony. If you're getting bored with the Giuoco Piano, try branching out within the opening you've already learned with something like the Evan's Gambit. If you've been playing for a year though, it's doubtfull that your time will be well spent reading through an opening book yet. Studying openings is all about trying to reach the middle game with a small advantage (learning opening traps is a comparitively minor part of this). The problem is a). until you reach a certain level, your opponents aren't likely to follow the lines you have studied and b). even if your study does get you a small advantage in the middle game, it will disappear in a heartbeat if you haven't learned how to hold on to it. The only book you should get now is a reference such as NCO that you can use to find out where you screwed up when you examine the games you played and learn what to do next time. Instead start focusing on what will win you games or at least keep you from losing them, and until you have reached a rating somewhere in the 1600-1800 range, this will involve a heavy dose of tactical study. Read a book that explains the tactical motifs such as Seirawan's "Winning Chess Tactics". I read it 'til I wore my copy out. Once you've read it, preferably a couple of times, start with a book or program of tactical problems. I started with Polgar's "5334 Chess Problems, Combinations, and Games", but this is not ideal as it is all checkmates. Dan Heisman recomends "Chess Tactics for Students" by Bain, which is probably a better choice but I'm unfamiliar. Do the problems (the first 5-600 of the 5334, don't do them all), then do them again and repeat until you recognise the solution almost on sight. This should take several months. Once you can do that start with intermediate problems such as Reinfeld's "1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices & Combinations" or the more up to date "Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book" by John Emms. Do the same thing that you did with more basic tactics. Since this is an ongoing process, you may also, during this time, read through an endgame book such as Averbach's "Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge" (available as a book or CD) or a book of annotated games like Bronstein's 'Zurich International Chess Tournament, 1953' or the games of an earlier master you like (I'd say nobody more recent than Botvinik). By now you should be a pretty good player and you will have better idea than I of what you should read next. Now may be the time to get your first book on an opening you like.

I don't know of any real courses per se, but if you can find and afford an individual instructor go for it. You can find online instructors if you join ICC. Find someone else to recomend one though as I'm not familiar with any other than the much sought after Dan Heisman. If you join, play your live games there. If you don't, start playing internet games using a true chess server. FICS offers almost everything ICC does but it's free so save the annual fee and buy a couple of good chess books. If you buy a ChessBase product like Fritz (not a bad idea) you get a free year on their server Playchess.com, so take advantage.

Originally posted by pino69
OK. Now that it's one year I play chess reading books, attendin tournaments, playing in Internet sites (gameknot and this one for whom wants to challenge me) , it's time to start more seriously.

Can anyone give me clues on where to start from? Examples:

1) choose an opening for White and a Defence for Black and start playing only that one (which one i ...[text shortened]... of chess lovers, but very few are really interested, so no one could advice

thank you
pino69

Ciao pino,mandami una partita quando ne hai voglia!

Originally posted by pino69
If I got right your advice: first learn tactics and then start with strategy

right?

Both together ideally. The problem with focussing soley on tactics is that in order to be able to use them you have to get into a position where combinations become a possibility. Annotated collections of games are helpful here or a middle game book. I agree with Skorj that you shouldn't bounce between openings. I'd recommend focussing on your endgame - this is the area where most players are weakest. Studying that will help you in the middle game because if you are confident about the ending you can go into more marginal endgames and not have to try and force a bigger advantage in the middle game than your opponent is going to allow.

Originally posted by pino69
If I got right your advice: first learn tactics and then start with strategy

right?

That should be the emphasis. Deep Thought is right in that you shouldn't ignore the other aspects of the game completely When someone is learning the game more or less from the beggining my recomendation is to learn the basics in all areas of the game before turning too much to tactics. The nice thing about studying tactics, once you get to the point that you are doing a lot of tactical puzzles, is that it can be done fairly casually. Unlike a lot of books on strategy and other areas of the game, you won't have to set up a board to follow along, and in fact you should absolutely avoid this and learn to do it in your head. Thus, if you want to pick up a book on something else while you are going through tactical puzzle books, go ahead. Spend at least 15-20 minutes a day on the puzzles, but if you have an hour or two free read the other book. I'd suggest a good endgame book, followed by something on strategy. Just beware of grabbing something too advanced. Before you get to that, though, read through a book that explains the tactics such as "Winning Chess Tactics" before moving to books that are purely puzzles.

Originally posted by Skorj
[b]That should be the emphasis. Deep Thought is right in that you shouldn't ignore the other aspects of the game completely

Skorj and Deep Thought, first of all thank you for your help

To have an overall sight of the various aspect of a match, I found two books from Edward Lesker: "Chess Strategy" and "Chess and Checkers".
They are wrote in the old notation (like P-KN3 instead of g3 )
Do you know them? What do you think about?
I'm asking that because they are not very short, they are in English (I'm Italian) and the notation adds complications. So I would like to avoid spending too much time uselessly.

Originally posted by pino69
Skorj and Deep Thought, first of all thank you for your help

To have an overall sight of the various aspect of a match, I found two books from Edward Lesker: "Chess Strategy" and "Chess and Checkers".
They are wrote in the old notation (like P-KN3 instead of g3 )
Do you know them? What do you think about?
I'm asking that because they are not very ...[text shortened]... the notation adds complications. So I would like to avoid spending too much time uselessly.

If you are going to read a book of Lasker's right now, I'd choose "Common Sense in Chess". I don't know what books may be available in Italian (your english doesn't seem so bad to me) but you will probably benefit most from puzzles and game collections where language isn't so important with these anyway as long as you can understand the notation. I believe many of Bobby Fischer's first books were written in Russian which he didn't speak at all.