Hello everyone! I'm making this post one of my first as it is relevant to one of the questions I had intended to ask on this website. Let me begin by stating that I am a beginner in chess and recently I've taken a great rekindled interest in it though I'm finding difficulty on where to take the first steps in the whole torrent of the learning process. For the past month I've trailed through 'Back to Basics, Fundamentals' by Branislav Francuski as well as the majority of the second edition of the 'Chess for Dummies' book. Both were extremely instructive and helpful to get me past the very core basics of Chess and I've just recently begun pushing through '202 Checkmates for Children' by Fred Wilson and Bruce Alberston which have 101 'checkmate in one' and 101 'checkmate in two' puzzles which I've found to be quite helpful and a lot fun solving. All of which have been helpful and obviously helped me improve but what would be the key area to focus on? Tactics, endgame, opening? Before I make a wall of text here I'll end this post in a quote that seems to be the advice of most GMs (well at least their quotes). “In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before
everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and
mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening
must be studied in relation to the endgame” -Jose Raul Capablanca

I think the "to improve your game" has to do where where you're at. If you have strong tactics, how to attack and opening principles. then end-game is where you to to improve.

If you are a true beginner, you must learn to hold on to your pieces before you can get better.

There are different stages in your chess development. What area is the most important for improvement depends on where you are at.

Endgames are good. I always recommend Silman's Complete Endgame Course. It goes from easiest and most common material up to master level stuff that doesn't come up in games that often. So you can start out just reading the first chapter or two, learn some stuff that's good for beginners, then set it aside until you feel you want more endgame knowledge.

The other thing you need is tactics, besides just the checkmate puzzles you're doing. Those types of things are good, but in real games, tactics to win material like forks, pins, skewers, etc come up far more often. So those are where you should be focusing your attention. I'm really not sure what the best beginner books for that are. Maybe Sierawan's "Winning Chess Tactics" - I haven't read any of the books in that series, but I've heard they're all excellent.

Besides reading, are you playing regularly? And reviewing your games afterward to see what you could have done better? Those are key to improving. Head to freechess.org for a good, free playing site, if you're not already playing online somewhere.

And my one last piece of advice that I always give beginners - head to chesscafe.com, click the "archives" link, and look up Dan Heisman's Novice Nook column. Two of his early articles were called "A Generic Study Plan" and "The Four Homeworks". Start with those, then read the other 100+ monthly columns at your leisure.

--Fromper

Thanks for the responses guys. After your suggestion of one of the Sierawan books on 'Winning Chess Tactics' I looked for it and found that my local library also has a copy, which is good news for me as it will save a good twenty dollars. I also found the Novice Nook column and just from a quick skim over it I can tell it will be immensely helpful. Also another quick question on the matter of actually playing games at my level of knowledge I've recently taken interest in the 'Ruy Lopez' opening and was wondering if it would be at all worth it for the time being to say stick to one or two to look at? I know that a bad opening can spell disaster but at the same time I can't exactly follow the whole craziness of say the Sicilian Najdorf. From the few beginner books I've read the Ruy Lopez, Petrov Defense, and a few other are lightly touched upon to highlight points the authors were driving, not to mention the basics of the Lopez seem easy enough to understand. So on that note should I even bother looking more into say one or two openings and indulge the mass of my book study of chess on tactics and things like that?

Good call on avoiding the Sicilian as a beginner. Stick with simple, easy to understand openings for now. They may not be the best possible openings for grandmasters, but they're certainly good enough that they see occasional play, even at the top levels. Actually, the Ruy Lopez is one of the most popular openings, even among grandmasters. But it's pretty complex - possibly too complex for a beginner.

The more common recommendation for beginners is to stick with the Italian (Giuoco Piano or Two Knights Defense, depending on how black responds), which also starts 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6, but then white sticks his bishop on c4 instead of b5. The point is that the bishop aimed at f7 helps with attacking the black king, which is something you need to be learning to do at this level. Worry about the more subtle positional play of the Ruy Lopez later.

Also, going back to the Heisman's Novice Nook, he had one column on generic opening principles that you'll probably want to read.

--Fromper

Don't spend too much time on the opening. Get the general idea, then spend your time working tactics. Here's a game I just finished that's a perfect example why. At first I fall for an opening trap idea for white, that is to pin black's knight after taking e4. I fell for it and was down a knight early, but later was able to win back the knight and then some.

The opening only takes you so far, after that you've got to play chess, which genearlly means tactics and good developing moves.

http://chess.maribelajar.com/chesspu...?id=1262556052

Not a game I'm exactly proud of, but I think demonstrates why trying to memorize openings and opening traps won't get you very far in chess.

Welcome aboard