On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years

If you’re dying to the boars you should just be playing the first 9 min of the game on repeat against the AI. If you can’t master that after 15-30 games, then RTS are not for you :)

I've mentioned this before in other discussions about chess. I was a little over 2000 USCF when I went to college before I decided that girls were more important than getting to 2200, lol.

Anyways, if you're a newer player and want to improve your game fast, this is what I would focus on.

1. Tactics. The vast majority of games between newer players are decided by tactics...someone hanging a piece, falling into a trap, etc. Practice tactics by doing puzzles, reviewing games of strong players with tactical themes. Lichess and Chess.com both have decent collections of tactics puzzles.

2. Don't try to learn a ton of openings. Pick one or two openings for white and black, and focus on them. Don't try to memorize lines, but rather become more familiar with the structures that result out of the openings, what typical objectives for white and black are, etc.

3. Familiarize yourself with endgame play. This is less important than #1 as a newer player, because all the endgame knowledge in the world means nothing if you hang a rook in the first 15 moves. But, it IS still important though, because you will get into endgames with a small advantage (or disadvantage) so you need to be familiar with how to convert that into a win (or hold your position). Rook endgames are especially important since they are generally the most common type of endgame. Lev Alburt has a good book called "Just the Facts" which covers endgame play. There are also puzzles and excercises on lichess and chess.com

4. Probably the fastest way to improve is to actually play games against stronger players than you and have them analyzed or annotated. You can either do this with a computer program, or a stronger human player if youre fortunate enough to know a strong player or have a coach. Lichess and Chess.com both have tools which will analyze your game and point out mistakes, missed opportunities etc. These are very helpful, they will instantly point out key moments in the game so you can see where you (or your opponent) went wrong.

Improvement in chess is really a volume game. The strongest players have played thousands of games and have a good sense and understanding of different positions because they have seen so many of them. They're able to quickly recognize patterns in these positions and devise a plan based on strengths/weaknesses. The best way to sort of develop this sixth sense is to put in the volume and play!

I wouldn't frame it as 'giving up' when you stop playing, rather you achieved what you set out to do.

Can anyone recommend any books or resources on teaching chess to kids?

I think learning basic chess is a good idea. It teaches a valuable idea very cleanly: The duality of offense and defense. This is a very valuable idea and not just applicable in violent war, but can also be applied to business and some competitive social relationships, including things like organized sports. I see a lot of people who lack this basic concept trying to operate in environments where it is crucial to understanding what is going on around you.

In my opinion, going deep into it like this into chess specifically has rapidly diminishing returns once you understand that concept.

However, there is also arguably some value in just putting in the effort to learn anything to that skill level, and childhood/teenage years are a good time to do it because you have the time (witness those in this very conversation talking about trying to combine it with the university time of their life... many people have learned how bad an idea that is the hard way....); chess is merely one of a panoply of possible options. It's probably not my personal first choice, I'd tend to suggest musical instrument mastery or language mastery or something else a bit more generally applicable, but if it floats you or your child's boat, that's fine. It's a lot easier if you have some buy-in.

I would just make sure to include an out; it's really easy for parents to encourage something and neglect to inform their child that it is a valid option to put a reasonable amount of effort into something and then move on when they're ready. My parents, 100% accidentally, did this to me with community youth baseball. In hindsight, they basically did nothing wrong, they were trying to be encouraging and supportive and everything else, and it just never crossed my mind to say that I didn't really want to do it, and I mean no criticism of them. But it was a blinding revelation one day when I realized that I could just not do that anymore.