Well I love chess, have been playing it a lot recently, and I am a smart, logical guy, so I am pretty sure I should be able to get good at this game, but as it stands I am pretty meh.

So my question is: what are the best ways to improve my game?

To be more specific: I do not know an good players to learn from, and I am pretty broke right now, so free options would be great. Join a chess club is an LDO answer, but are there any good on line resources/ things I should focus on whilst playing?

You probably want to check out the What is the best free site to play chess on? thread for starters.

The library usually has a lot of decent chess books.

Well at first you should realize (I assume you do), that chess is amazingly complicated game. In order to actually master it you need to devote yourself completely for years. I've been playing professionally for around 14 years now, and I cannot say that I am even close at being very good at this game. Probably better than 99.5% of people in the world, but.. I brought that up cause I know some people, who think very highly of themselves, or just cannot stand to not being able to do something, so they pick up chess and think they can master it in a matter of days or weeks. That never ends well for your ego

As long as you realize that and still want to become better at chess, a couple tips:

1. Always take the games you play seriously. Try learning something from every single game - even if you won a game, it does not necessarily mean, that you played well. If you got beat, analyze why did it happen. So the best tool that chess players are using to improve is the analysis after the game. You should learn the chess notation and write games down, so you can replay them later (or you can try memorizing it).

2. If you are really interested in it, try going to your library and getting some chess books. Yes, in our computer era you can probably find everything online, but believe me, it as a completely different and better feeling, to read from an actual book and make moves on an actual board, instead of a computer screen.

3. There are also tons of chess websites around. I cannot say I know a lot of sites that provide training cause I never really looked for it, but I am sure you can find some via google. If you are interested in seeing how better players play, you can try www.chessgames.com , it has a pretty big database of games that you can replay at any time. Also, there are tons of training video's in Youtube. Try looking for user "grobchess" , that's a friend of mine and I am pretty sure he made a decent amount of instructional videos.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate

Hope that helps, good luck!

thanks guys.

i fully accept that i am never going to become a soul crushing grandmaster, i do not have enough decdication to the game, but i feel that given time i should be able to become an 1800+ player even only as a weekender, so perhaps i should clarify that that is the order of my ambition.

The best way to see quick improvement is Tactics!!
without a good base in that you are wasting your time on openings which i think is the most common mistake among club players. A good book on tactics is 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations. cheap book and one that will really improve your game.

Chess is not only about tactics though.. But in general I think you are right, in the level where chess is played for fun, seeing tactics well will give you a huge advantage, even if you don't understand positional play.

chess is mostly tactics. sure you need some positional understanding, etc, but tactics are by far the most important aspect. a strong tactical lpayer who is ok positionally is much stronger than a strong positional player who is ok at tactics.

When I was a lowly class D player just starting to try to improve, I read a couple books that dealt with strategy and positional play. The problem is that my chess basics were so bad that I consistently misapplied the knowledge I gained. This doesn't mean I believe that strategy is harmful, even for beginners. It's just not an efficient way to initially improve.

Then I found Rapid Chess Improvement by Michael de la Maza. He emphasizes tactics and "board vision". You can get most of the book for free in two articles by the author:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf
http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles150.pdf

The nice thing about studying tactics is that you begin to understand strategy at the same time and then when you've mastered the basics, you can really gain from studying positional ideas because you'll have a much firmer grasp of when they can be applied.

I already mentioned, that I also believe, that tactics are more important than positional understanding for beginning players up to some level. However, the statement "a strong tactical player who is ok positionally is much stronger than a strong positional player who is ok at tactics" is flat out wrong. First of all, it is very player and level of play dependent. For example, take Vladimir Kramnik. Obviously he has a better tactical vision than you or me, but at his level (2700+), his tactics is not good at all. It is probably worse, or on the same level, as American chess hero's Nakamura's. Does that make Nakamura a better player? No. Cause Kramnik's positional understanding and careful selection of openings let's him avoid tactical complications, and he simply destroys his opponents in a positional battle. I see you share the same misconception like a lot of inexperienced players who tend to idealize tactics. It does not work that way.. I am a tactical player myself, been one my whole life. And I realize, that that's why I am only 2250 - I don't have a required positional understanding to move up. Would you care to elaborate with some proof about why is the tactical player better than a positional one? Would be very interesting to hear that.

Kramnik is extremely strong tactically, and if he is worse at calculation than some other super-gms it is by a small margin, while he is much stronger positionally/technically than most. Almost all positional ideas and maneuvers are based on tactics. I mean look at comps - do you think their strength is derived from solid fundamental strategic/long term understanding? Fwiw, im not some inexperienced player.

I'm dumbfounded that you just suggested Kramnik's tactical vision is anything less than world class......... He pretty much single handedly developed hoards of lines in some of the most complicated tactically intricate systems (gruenfeld, botvinnik variation of semi-slav, etc.) Next I assume you're going to say Petrosian was just "okay" at tactics too? Without an incredibly refined tactical ability, quiet "positional" play is impossible! There's no such thing as a tactical player, or a positional player. Every single game is predominated by tactics. Kasparov is undoubtedly one of the most positionally strong champions ever.

Anyhow, the path to improvement is tactics tactics tactics. Pick up a chess book like Fred Reinfeld's "1001 chess sacrifices and combinations) and go through the book solving the positions. Then do it again. Then do it again until you are solving each positions in a matter of seconds. You're not actually memorizing the positions. Your brain starts to internalize many of the patterns and it will drastically improve your regular game.

I think lots of people are assuming everybody else sucks here, which will probably change pretty quickly. I think the thing is that 1600 is better than like 99.9% of people who casually play chess, so you don't expect anything else when posting about chess on a poker forum. But it looks like internet poker players are a pretty biased sample when it comes to median chess strength!

It seems a lot of strong chess players also play poker. I can think of several people (including a 2400, a 2200, a 2100, and someone just under 2000) that I faced growing up who have made a lot of money in online and B&M poker. One made the money in the most recent WSoP main event.

I never said that I think that tactics are not important and I even said that I am a tactician myself. What I said is that I don't agree with a statement, that a player who is good tactically is better than a player who is good positionally, and I am standing with my opinion. Good player has to be good at both tactics and positional play, ideally he should be able to switch his playing style according to an opponent or a position. You guys keep saying, that all the positional play is based on tactics (which is wrong again), but no one mentioned that in order to set up a tactical play against a strong opponent (and I am not talking about random opponents who can miss easy, though pretty, tactical blows even when they could easily avoid it, often causing the tactical player positional problems that later cannot be fixed), you need to have a very good positional understanding and feel. All of the good tactics are based on positional resources!

This has gotten a bit off track. We all agree, studying tactics will be hugely beneficial for a new player, yes? One thing was mentioned above but I want to make sure OP and anyone else looking to improve takes serious note of it. Always, always learn from your games. I really wasn't disciplined in this process for the first few years of playing chess. If I had really taken this to heart I would have saved tons of losses and probably improved much faster. Save every game you play (yes, blitz too) and find any significant mistakes you made. "Significant" changes as you become stronger.

QFT.

If anyone is really very serious , get Rybka (best "bot"; recently won
another computer championship) to analyze games, get ChessBase (haven't
considered any alternatives), subscribe to New In Chess (best chess
magazine; maybe Informator is another periodical to consider), develop an
opening repertoire, and study endgame theory (especially rook endgames,
pawn endgames and minor piece endings; Queen endgames are maybe too
hard!). The best online site (to play blitz or watch grandmasters play) is
chessclub.com a.k.a. ICC but it's not free. A free "database site" I like is
chessgames.com.

If one plays online, even against a "bot", every move can be analyzed and a
major step is to classify one's own mistakes, e.g., "What am I usually
overlooking?", "How is my positional judgment lacking?". If you're lucky to
know a local GM that can help/coach you, even better.