How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

Re:How to Get Good at Chess, Fast by colanderman on Monday November 25, 2013 @11:05AM (#6794812)

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 but I know that if I came back to it, I could approach it from a much better informed viewpoint, since now I understand the high-level strategic elements that 7-year-old me didn't realize existed.

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Re:How to Get Good at Chess, Fast by nsxwolf on Monday November 25, 2013 @11:11AM (#6794869)

I started looking at openings, thinking that if I just started out with a well tested, accepted pre-canned opening, I'd be in a better position to start seeing some strategy.

It looked promising at first, but I still get creamed. At least it looks like I might know what I'm doing for the first few moves.

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Re:How to Get Good at Chess, Fast by LanceH on Monday November 25, 2013 @11:56AM (#6795202)

Except for a few traps, the opening is largely irrelevant to beginners.

Study endgames first, you learn how the pieces move.

Then study middlegame tactics to see how they work together.

Lastly you study openings to get to your preferred middlegame.

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Re:How to Get Good at Chess, Fast by icoder on Monday November 25, 2013 @02:13PM (#6796200)

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

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