What should every beginner know?

Originally posted by coquette
Pawn structures

Time versus Material (3 moves for a pawn is a good deal)

For a beginner? I don't think so. Pawn structure, the basics only. But 3 moves for a pawn? For a beginner, that just means he's a pawn down. A beginner won't know what to do with those three extra tempi.

Look nervous when you make a good move; look confident when you are making a weak move and are in trouble

Look away from the key area of the board that you are really concerned about - make the other player study the wrong moves while you are thinking

That works for exactly one game. You might as well watch a poker game and try and gain lessons from that - the best players are never that unsubtle.

Look very doubtful and hesitate as you deliver mate, act as though your opponent has a move to make - it prolongs the pleasure

Alternatively, maybe don't be a procreative organ of the appropriate gender.

Richard

Savage,

I wasn't really basing the book on the true beginner. It seems to me that most beginners (vast majority) know how the pieces move and know about checkmate.

I think you are correct about placement. Perhaps R and Q checkmates should be place closer to the beginning, but I think K P end game is still important for the beginner and should be at the end of the book.

The term beginner is a very wide term.

Originally posted by Eladar
[bThe term beginner is a very wide term.[/b]

Kasparov alternates between calling a 2000 fide rated player either a beginner or a strong amateur depending on if the person supports his agenda.

🙂

Originally posted by Eladar
If you were to create a book for beginners and I mean for someone who has never played the game, how many chapters would it have and how in depth would you go? I'm assuming that chapter one gives the basics: board set up, how pieces move,rules of the game, and object of the game.

Now what?


I'd go with:

Chpt 2 Board vision: Examples of how you ne ...[text shortened]...
Chpt 9: One move checkmate puzzles.


Am I missing anything? Would this be too much?

The options to look for when under check: Move the K, capture the checking piece, or place a piece between, and when they don't apply (check by the N; double check).

Castling.

Pawn promotion.

En Passant.

Stalemate.

These last 4 may seem too complicated but the beginning player will wonder about it when his opponent does it.

Originally posted by nimzo5
Kasparov alternates between calling a 2000 fide rated player either a beginner or a strong amateur depending on if the person supports his agenda.

🙂

I don't think he means that a 'strong amateur' is strong though. it's just an established term for that 2000ish rating range, isn't it. if someone says 'strong amateur', you're not thinking of people like jorge sammour-hasbun.

Originally posted by JS357
Castling.

Pawn promotion.

En Passant.

Stalemate.

These last 4 may seem too complicated but the beginning player will wonder about it when his opponent does it.

I think I'd call that chapter "Weird Chess Stuff". I think you're right, there is a need for such a chapter. I remember questioning 0-0-0. I thought the person was absolutely crazy for doing such a thing and thought he had made an illegal move!

I had to look up en passant on the internet too.

Originally posted by wormwood
I don't think he means that a 'strong amateur' is strong though. it's just an established term for that 2000ish rating range, isn't it. if someone says 'strong amateur', you're not thinking of people like jorge sammour-hasbun.

I think Kaspy uses the term to defend people who are highly accomplished in some other field, i.e. business, politics, science etc. who play chess. He might say that mayor X who is like 1900 is a strong amatuer blah blah blah.

Originally posted by Eladar
Savage,

I wasn't really basing the book on the true beginner. It seems to me that most beginners (vast majority) know how the pieces move and know about checkmate.

I think you are correct about placement. Perhaps R and Q checkmates should be place closer to the beginning, but I think K P end game is still important for the beginner and should be at the end of the book.

The term beginner is a very wide term.

I don't know if you were actually planning on writing a book at some point or if you were just asking the question but I assumed we were talking about a hypothetical book. I think if you're writing a book for beginners you should assume they know absolutely nothing for four reasons:

1) The vast majority of people ARE complete beginners. While a 1200 player may not seem very strong on a chess website they are better than probably 90% of the general population.

2) Leaving things out narrows the focus of your target audience. If you say you're going to write a book for only 1300's that doesnt leave many potential buyers. If all you had to do was add one chapter to potentially triple your target audience wouldnt it make sense to do so?

3) Success in chess or in anything in life is about practicing certain fundamental things over and over. Its not about learning some "secret". It would be useful to any player to review the basics every chance they can get. I remember reading somewhere that Tal used to watch TV shows targeted at beginners while he was world champion. I know that whenever I pick up a book that starts with beginners (Like Silman's endgame course for example), I start at the very beginning and go through the entire book. Someone may think that they "know" a K,Q vs.K endgame but it never hurts to review it and see if there's another way of thinking about it that you never considered or just practicing it and seeing if you can do it more efficiently or faster.

4) Repitition and reinforcement of ideas is how people learn and master things. For example, when I first started I didn't think the center was very important. But, every book I read said it was so I tried to play in the center. Eventually, one day it just clicked for me and I could see it. Now its my main focus in the opening. If books hadn't repeated it and just assumed I knew it then I never would have developed that part of my game. I see that all the time in games of beginners. They'll tell you they understand something but you can tell from their games that they don't. They get held back because they don't understand the basics and they keep searching for the "secret" .

I don't think that what I've mentioned is simply for 1300's. I'm basing my observations on what I needed to figure out when I first started trying to figure out how to play chess. I knew how the pieces moved. I knew the object of the game was checkmate. I just had zippo idea about where to put my pieces and why.