I'm just starting over...I have no clue how strong I am but I def. used to see easy tactics stuff (1-2 moves). I'll do endgames first anyways but I just want a supersimple opening collection so I can play more games without feeling superlost.

I mean I could just follow basic heuristics and play like that but I like a tad more structure. Been playing the Colle a bit vs the computer as white and I like knowing that I'll have somewhat similar strategies to follow while trying to improve the basic tactics and endgame...usually just either box him in with knight or attack the h7 square with knight+bishop+queen/rook full out.

Not even going deep or looking at any lines just a basic gameplan to stick to. Seems a lot harder with black.

On a related note, is the chess.com diamond deal worth it? That mentor thingy looks kind of cool.

I have a diamond membership there. There are some really good vids, and the mentor is nice. Some mentor lessons are better than others, and also I find myself using it less than I had thought I would. But all in all I'd say it is priced adequately. There is a free trial period, so you can check yourself.

Regarding the openings, if you stick to the usual rules (quick development of minor pieces to good active squares, occupying the centre, castling, not making useless pawn moves), you will reach a playable position almost always. I'd say answer d4 with d5 and e4 with e5 and go from there.

I'm a diamond member at chess.com too, and IMO it's worth it. The membership is something like $100/year, which only comes out to $8ish/month. The feature I use the most is without a doubt the video lessons. They post a huge amount of videos, nearly one new one per day. Great material on some really interesting topics. I'd probably pay the membership fee for the videos alone.

Yeah it's cheap enough that I'll give it a try. Thx (also I think d5;e5 is fine for now as well).

Can anybody tell me how can this young player whose elos and icc ratings are below me be better than me irl blitz?

Because ratings are approximations based on small amounts of data?

ELOs of young players are often lagging behind and ICC ratings depend a lot on how seriously you take the games - maybe either he takes the ICC games less seriously than you do or you take the OTB games less seriously. Or maybe his playing style and openings are anti-you

And the "he's better than [Dorilla] irl blitz" is probably based on an even smaller amount of data, since he didn't even mention anything about OTB blitz ratings...

Actually his blitz rating is slightly higher than mine irl. And that rating is based on a lot of games. His elo though is about 200 below me. Maybe with his skills it is more like 100 but still.

There will always be sample size problems with chess ratings, because it probably isn't possible to play enough games and a wide-enough sampling of players.

n00b question - are there any decent programs to play chess in windows against a computer that are free? not using win 7 can't use the built in one it has. ty

get lucas chess

has anyone had any experience using chess king ? or does anyone have a link 2 a reliable review? http://chess-king.com/ here's the site for it I'm considering getting it Just because its so convenient 2 do the analysis on computer rather than getting out board and writing stuff down. Or what are the alternatives?

http://www.chessity.com/
Chessvibes just wrote about that website, so I made an account for fun. In the castle mode you compete with three other people solving puzzles. I won easily in easy and medium. But I only won one time out of seven in hard. Man those guys must be pretty good. Or maybe they are bots. Probably not though, but I gotta find excuses for my failures. At least it is easy for me to improve.

Hmm it seems some have solved over 30k problems. That is a lot considering the site was launched on december.

sounds great (except for the potential bots part), definitely trying that once i un-hangover

Ok tried it now. I think the opponents are bots - at least some of them. Beatable bots though. The problems still need work, I got burnt twice for making a wrong mate in 2 when multiple ones were possible

Chessbase is traditionally tricky with their April's Fools, this year as well:
http://www.chessbase.com/ Spot the fake news item(s)

There was also an extremely well devised April's Fools article on the German Chessbase site about FIDE's new rating method for the April elo list.

This is the article: Link and this is supposedly the new rating list: Link. Great idea!

Which vids are good for a begginer? Like I know the rules and a few basic principles but not much more than that. I know there is a search filter for begginer vids but there's a lot of them!

thanks

You're right, their video library is pretty overwhelming. Here are a few that I'd recommend starting off with.

IM Daniel Rensch provides most of the content for the website and from what I can tell on his videos, he's a very good teacher. These two videos give you the basic tactical patterns which should be part of any beginner's foudation.

The third link I've provided shows IM Rensch breezing through nearly every opening and giving a brief overview of the pawn structures involved.

1) http://www.chess.com/video/player/pa...ic-tactics---1

2) http://www.chess.com/video/player/pa...ic-tactics---2

3) http://www.chess.com/video/player/pa...ning-explained

He also has a 4-part series called "Everything You Need to Know" and here are those links. These videos cover the opening, tactics and strategy, the endgame, and the final video called "bringing it all together".

1) http://www.chess.com/video/player/ev...ow-the-opening

2) http://www.chess.com/video/player/ev...tics--strategy

3) http://www.chess.com/video/player/ev...ow-the-endgame

4) http://www.chess.com/video/player/ev...ng-it-together

If that isn't what you're looking for or you think those are too basic, just let me know and I can try to point you in the right direction. Hope that helps.

^^ thanks that's very kind.

I actually did something really stupid though and asked that question before realizing you have to pay to access the vids I just thought they were all free and wanted to know which were good to start with.

Is Diamond membership the only option for those who want to view the vids?

thanks again

I heartily second the Daniel Rensch suggestions. Both of those series helped me TREMENDOUSLY.

EDIT: I believe that some of the vids are free. If I recall correctly, you should be able to watch the "Everything You Need To Know" series without paying. I'm pretty sure that I watched it before getting a paid membership, though I could be remembering it wrong, or things might have changed.

Like Mayo said, they have some content which is free, but in general yes, you have to be a diamond member to watch videos. However, they do have a youtube channel which has tons of free content, something like over 600 videos. There should be some really good stuff in there. Here's the link to it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/wwwChesscom

To get you off the ground there are some good educational videos, but for learning and just pure enjoyment I'd HIGHLY recommend one of the "Live Sessions" videos by IM Rensch. He has a knack for verbalizing his thoughts as he's playing.

Great information thanks a lot. I guess I'll get started on the youtube vids they look really appropriate for me atm. I just want to get up to a level where I can beat my friends and family and be competitive vs a half decent player.