My Diary as an Amatuer Chess "player"

I decided to pick up chess at a semi mature age ”closer to 30 than to 25 (42yo!)” since I am a boardgame geek and since I like to solve problems. This site will be the starting point for my chess studies or to be more precise: My humble attempts to give the ol’ brain some exercise.

I ordered some books today which I hope will come in handy:

”Guide to Good Chess” by Purdy
”Learn Chess Tactics” by John Nunn
“Chess Tactics” by Littlewood
Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur – Euwe
”Simple Chess” by Emms

As soon as I have got 20+ games under my belt I will focus on tournaments and reduce my game load.

I might join some clan if I can overcome (as Croucho Marx) the fear of joining an organization that would let me in!
😉

Comments appreciated!

Post your first 5 defeats and there'll be plenty to say.

When you lose them...of course.

good choices with the books.

You should also get the 7 books in GM Seriwans Winning Chess Series.

They are all excellent.

My advice is not to spend too much money on books. Find some real life people to play against instead.

Welcome from another advanced beginner. The books are helpful but you'll also learn a lot from the skilled players you'll meet here. There's a lot of talent in this gang.

"Guide to Good Chess" by Purdy is one of my favorite books.

Keep us posted on your progress!

Two pieces of advice: "After your opponent moves, always ask youself 'What's the threat?'" Just before making your move, ask yourself, 'What wonderful thing does my move do to improve my position?'"

Here are a few chessites that you might find interesting. They have been posted several times in the forums but this might save you the search.

chesskids.com (I use their tactical quizzes and some of their lessons)
chesstactics.org (another tactical site)
chesscafe.com (novice's nook I find useful)

chesslecture.com (I have never used this. It's a paysite but looks like it might have potential). Good luck with the books. I have different ones but it sounds like you have invested a lot that way. If you find one particularly useful you might consider writing a little review of it.

Finding someone who is a strong player (300 points or so above you) who is willing to go over a game once in awhile is invaluable. That is why I joined the chessclub clan and I find the private forums there to be excellent.


Hope this helps and good luck

Lots of usefull advice, friends! I will keep you posted on my "progress".

Why do this in public? Well, I have already had a lot of useful advice/tips. Perhaps someone in a similar situation will read my rumblings and perhaps would consider to join the Quest for less error prone chess.

I will probably use Chessmaster's ranked game feature to get some guesstimate of the developement of my playing strength. Do not fear/suspect that I will use any software during ongoing games. I am here to train my brain and not some CPU.

sydsad skill index: 604

Originally posted by sydsad
I will probably use Chessmaster's ranked game feature to get some guesstimate of the developement of my playing strength.

If you have Chessmaster 10th Edition, make sure you go through Waitzkin's Chess Academy. I started playing chess two years ago (at the age of 34), and that was one of the first things I did. At that point I think books would have been too difficult, but the Chess Academy was immensely helpful and has brought me to where I am now. The only chess book I have read so far is Silman's "How to Reassess Your Chess", which is very good, but needs serious studying and practice if it shall help your chess, and I haven't done that (the last year I have mostly just been playing and haven't made any progress).

Yep! I have been using the tutorials. Very good stuff. I my opinion the tutorials are worth the price of the software by themselves....

Originally posted by sydsad
Yep! I have been using the tutorials. Very good stuff. I my opinion the tutorials are worth the price of the software by themselves....

There are also approx. 7 tutorial in the chess academy. I just found those by chance. A couple of them are repeats but the other are new and they are all great!

Originally posted by sydsad

I ordered some books today which I hope will come in handy:

”Guide to Good Chess” by Purdy
”Learn Chess Tactics” by John Nunn
“Chess Tactics” by Littlewood
Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur – Euwe
”Simple Chess” by Emms

Comments appreciated![/b]

Welcome to the site!

It will be interesting to see if you manage to study (not read) all of them. Please keep us posted.

I suggest that study them in this order:
1 Learn Chess Tactics
2 Chess Tactics
3 Simple Chess
4 Guide to Good chess
5 Chess master vs. Chess Amateur

Thank you! Solid advice which I might disrespect a bit. I think I will start with Nunn's book but I will probably mix that one with small doses of Euwe.

What would be a wise Begginer's Approach to Opening Theory? There are tons of stuff to study before studying/memorizing opening patterns. However, I often find myself annoyed by the fact that I do not have a clear idea of how to survive/propsper during the Opening Phase.

I belive that beginners should play basic stuff and try to have a Logical reason for every Opening move. They might not be Theory moves but why make a theory move if you don not know why?

So, using this approach I might fall into a ton of traps but I think it will be a way towards improving.

Any thoughts??