Hello everyone… I’ve been playing chess informally for seveal years with my father who has recently passed away… He was a really good chess player…
I have decided to try to play chess more activlely now and to try to learn more than I have by just playing with one person.
What is the best way to learn? Private lessons… reading books… playing tournaments… I live in the Dallas area and have been viewing the Dallas Chess Club Sight… they seem to be all about tournaments. Never played one… I’m not rated and don’t really know how well I play in regards to others… I assume I’m somewhere between novice and intermediate.
Are there other Clubs in the Dallas area that offer lessons or instruction? Anyway… I’m looking forward to learning more about chess from others instead of repeating my same ole mistakes over and over… I seem to have reached a plateau that I would like to get passed and I’m not sure where to concentrate my efforts.
Sounds like you’re in about the same boat I was in two and a half years ago. Take it from me: If you assume you’re somewhere between novice and intermediate, you’re a novice.
Speaking for myself, five things got me from where I was then to where I am today, which is somewhere between novice and intermediate:
[]Play frequently against players who are above your level, but not unattainably so. Look for rated beginners’ opens in your area – in tournament announcements, this is usually abbreviated “RBO” – as well as tournaments that regularly include participants in the 600-to-1000 range. I notice, for instance, that the Dallas Chess Club’s tournaments often have reserve sections with players in this range.[/]
[]Read books aimed at beginners, like Bruce Pandolfini’s Ultimate Guide to Chess and Yury Shulman’s Chess! Lessons From a Grandmaster. They contain information that you should have learned the first time around but probably didn’t.[/]
[]Do lots and lots of tactical problems. I like Chess School 1a: The Manual of Chess Combinations.[/]
[]Record your games and run analyses on them in programs such as Fritz.[/]
[]Develop a thinking heuristic. The first four things helped me a lot, but this one made all the difference for me. Get Dan Heisman’s The Improving Chess Thinker. Only about three chapters of it will be of any use to you right now, but those three chapters are literal game-changers.[/]
Avoid playing on general web sites such as Yahoo or MSN. There are a number of free web sites such as Chessworld.net [fastest play rate is 1 move every 2 days], Chesscube, FISC, & Gameknot that have free play at various time controls and do not stop being free after 1 month. Some of those sites also have free content that may be useful to you. Also, check out the other various chess web sites where you may get free instruction or information. A search of “Chess Tactics” will bring up a number of sites, but not all will be free. Hope this helps a little.
For just online play without a lot of software setup or command-line headaches, head to chess.com (free account).
For over-the-board play, I would highly encourage attending the Dallas chess club weekly tournaments. DCC is a great club. Feel free to ask questions and settle in for playing a few tournaments before you decide it’s not for you.