Chess for Beginners

Category: Announcements

  • Chess Evolution

    I played in the U 1500 section of the Miami Open a few weeks ago, and it was not a good outing. I only won one of 5 games against a much lower rated opponent. While devastated, it has only made me work harder on my chess. The week following the Open, I immediately started taking face to face lessons with FM Charles Galofre.  I have decided to stop trying to find my path on my own, and to work with a strong player that can guide me in the right direction.  I have two lessons under my belt, and I have been very pleased with the direction my chess improvement process has been taking.

    I will begin posting more frequently in the coming days, but I wanted to document some of the things I have been doing differently in the last couple of weeks.

    1. Started taking chess lessons

    2. Narrowed the focus of my chess study (50% of study time is on tactics)

    3. Focusing on my thought process

    4. FM Galofre recommended that I start playing open game as White

    5. Taking every game as an opportunity to learn (annotating and reviewing afterwards)

    Failure is not getting knocked down, it’s not getting up again

    – Vince Lombardi

  • My Favorite Chess Sites

    Favorite Chess Blogs

    1. Chessvibes : News, tournament reports and endgames studies.

    2. Chess for all Ages : A little bit about everything about chess.

    3. Chess Training :  Not a well known blog, but worth checking out. It is not frequently updated, but when it is the content is exactly what I’m looking for in a chess improvement blog.

    4. Susan Polgar Chess News and Information : Frequently updates news and puzzles from Susan Polgar.

    5. The Kenilworthian : The Kenilworth Chess Club, but don’t let the name fool you, this blog contains lots of news and information not found elsewhere, definitely worth a visit.

    Favorite Chess Sites

    1. Chess.com: Best chess social networking site

    2. Chessbase : Best chess news .

    3. Chess Cafe : Best chess related articles.

    4. chessgames.com : Best chess game database, also has guess the move feature which is excellent for training.

    5. Chess Tempo: Best placed to practice your tactics online.

    Honorable Mentions

    1. www.chess.fm : Worth the visit, if only for the Dan Heisman training videos. (requires ICC membership to view most videos)

  • Most Popular Posts

    Below are the six most popular posts on beginchess.com of the past few years:

  • Chess Memory

    Interesting article on chess memory which should be read by all who are interested in chess psychology and learning.

  • Twitter on Sidebar

    Added a feed of my Twitter posts on the right sidebar.

  • Chess Tweets

    I haven’t had much time to devote to blogging, so I am trying a new method. I am posting my chess training notebook using Twitter. If the post requires more than the 140 character limit, then I will expand on the topic via the blog.

  • Chess Lessons in Miami

    If you live in the South Florida area, the Miami International Chess Academy is offering group lessons with IM Blas Lugo at reasonable rates . Check out their website for more info.

  • Opening Tree Search Online

    Chessok, has made available online an opening tree search. You can now receive detailed statistics on all opening moves carefully classified and stored in their opening database.

  • List of Educational Chess Games

    In a previous post I had promised to compile and post the most instructive games in ChessBase format. I haven’t been able to get around to compiling all of the games, so I am posting a PDF file containing a list of these Educational Chess Games based broken down by themes.

  • Tactics Online

    Chess Tempo is a new online tactics site, it is still in testing, but it is definetly worth a visit. It is similar to the Chess Tactics Server, but you do not have the time penalties CTS has, so you can think about the position a bit longer.