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How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

gautamnarula.com

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Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#131

Post by z0r »

anatoly wrote: post #127
z0r wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.kiseido.com/go_books.htm Pick up "Tesuji", "Life & Death" and "Attack & Defence". Use "Tesuji" and "Life & Death" to learn the how and why of basic go tactics and to prepare yourself to study problems in general. Keep "Attack & Defence" for when you are ready to learn how to actually play go on a strategic level. Pick up the "Graded Go Problems for Beginners" vol 1 - 4. Pick up "1001 Life & Death". Pick up…

What's the best place to play online, for an absolute beginner?

For an absolute beginner, try running through this first:

http://playgo.to/iwtg/en/

Then register an account on KGS - http://www.gokgs.com/

Play games with low time limits (something like 5 - 10 minutes main time and 5 x 30 s overtime) and play a bunch! Ask for reviews on the KGS Teaching Ladder (a discussion room on the server), if you can get a good teacher or two to help early on you can figure out what the game is about with less pain.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#132

Post by rfnslyr »

nsxwolf wrote: post #121
dwc wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are really interested in chess then there are certainly ways to improve. All of them take work, but you don't have to give over your whole life. A little every day is enough. I can't recommend http://www.chesstactics.org enough. Tactics are crucial, both for offense and defense. Read this for understanding, not to skim, and do the exercises. Again, do the exercises . While going through the above, or after you…

I will definitely take a look at chesstactics.

On any of my commutes I'd just be doing chess tactics on my phone. After like a year I played some 100~ games. Won like 75 of them because I got really good at predicting moves and recognizing patterns. Seriously just nail out tactics day in and day out.

They are micro puzzles that increase in difficulty and isolate specific parts of the chess game, be it beginning, mid, or end game. Once you do a couple thousand of these, move on to a real board where every piece is in play.

Trust me, you'll get good fast, it just depends how much time you're willing to put in. Also, go to chess clubs. I go every Monday in my city and it's a huge help to get insight from veterans and pros.

Once you start even remotely understanding strategy and moves, you will get so addicted. Just need get over that beginners hump. I'm still shit by the way.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#133

Post by mbubb »

dwc wrote: post #117
nsxwolf wrote: post #111

Will anyone here besides me admit they've never won a game of chess, ever, not once? Even against some random little kid who only knows how the pieces move, at Thanksgiving? I have this suspicion that some part of my brain is damaged and I'll never be able to play chess. I've made many attempts at learning, but have never improved over randomly moving pieces around the board. Any advice on a resource that will help m…

If you are really interested in chess then there are certainly ways to improve. All of them take work, but you don't have to give over your whole life. A little every day is enough. I can't recommend http://www.chesstactics.org enough. Tactics are crucial, both for offense and defense. Read this for understanding, not to skim, and do the exercises. Again, do the exercises . While going through the above, or after you…

nice site - thanks

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#135

Post by jonathansizz »

nsxwolf wrote: post #111

Will anyone here besides me admit they've never won a game of chess, ever, not once? Even against some random little kid who only knows how the pieces move, at Thanksgiving? I have this suspicion that some part of my brain is damaged and I'll never be able to play chess. I've made many attempts at learning, but have never improved over randomly moving pieces around the board. Any advice on a resource that will help m…

I understand how you feel. I only learned chess properly when I was around 30 years old. Anyone should be able to at least learn chess to a standard where they can enjoy playing against other casual players.

See my previous comment for my recommendations on learning chess.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#136

Post by ams6110 »

mrcactu5 wrote: post #129

I’m going to define “good” as the 90th percentile among the player pool you’re competing against. This is a very interesting definition of "good". Appropriate for Chess, but has interesting ramifications elsewhere.

How so? It's the general standard for an "A" grade in any other subject.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#137

Post by nih »

birken wrote: post #5

And for those that are interested in building their interest in chess in a way that is more entertainment than education, I highly recommend watching "live commentaries", IE chess players playing against other people online while commentating it live. My personal favorite is IM Greg Shahade (aka curtains), who has hundreds of these videos online [1]. There are also a bunch on youtube from other sources, but in my opi…

I've developed a better 'feel' for the game by watching Andrew Martins lectures @ http://www.youtube.com/user/YMChessMaster/videos

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#139

Post by icoder »

colanderman wrote: post #116
nsxwolf wrote: post #111

Will anyone here besides me admit they've never won a game of chess, ever, not once? Even against some random little kid who only knows how the pieces move, at Thanksgiving? I have this suspicion that some part of my brain is damaged and I'll never be able to play chess. I've made many attempts at learning, but have never improved over randomly moving pieces around the board. Any advice on a resource that will help m…

Hear, hear. I've instead tried to get better at everything but chess. e.g. playing StarCraft helped me learn basics of strategy that I wholly didn't understand the first 20 years of my life. I've "known" how to "play" chess since I was young, so I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Learning strategy via a different vehicle helped me get past those roadblocks. I haven't played a game of chess in probably 10 years…

Just came to this thread to say how much of the article reminded me of my process of learning Starcraft.

Re: How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

#140

Post by mrcactu5 »

ams6110 wrote: post #136
mrcactu5 wrote: post #129

I’m going to define “good” as the 90th percentile among the player pool you’re competing against. This is a very interesting definition of "good". Appropriate for Chess, but has interesting ramifications elsewhere.

How so? It's the general standard for an "A" grade in any other subject.

When we hire someone for a job, we want someone who is "good" at what they do. By this logic, we pick someone in the top 10% - a notion which will vary from person to person.

Now consider a job market, where employers are looking for candidates. Employers what "good" workers, candidates want "good" jobs. All the activity will be concentrated around the top 10% of each side.

The situation will be better or worse depending on correlations among everyone's definition of "good". This has nothing to do with chess, sorry!

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