How to improve at chess for beginners

There are thousands of materials on development in chess and it seems quite challenging to filter the good from the best (not to mention the bad!). There are various levels of development and certain materials are appropriate for each stage.

Thankfully, going from beginner level (knowing how to move) to competent (being able to beat other beginners consistently) is quite easy! Development shouldn't be a capital intensive project. Here's a few hints on what's worked for me:

1. Get a good chess program with audio/video tutorials: Depending on your learning preference (i.e. auditory, visual or kinesthetic) this could be the best tool at your disposal for chess development. The choice of program should also have lots of practice material.
2. Focus on basic chess principles, laws, and concepts: Areas to work on include basic opening, basic endgames, basic checkmate patterns, the center, tactics, weaknesses, & outposts. You'll be amazed at your improvement.
3. Play with stronger opponents: It feels really good to win. Chances are you'll lose a lot of games playing stronger opponents, but it's far more important to have a champion's mentality in all your games - a loss is nothing more than an opportunity to learn :)
4. Have Fun: Pleasure is a far stronger motivating factor than pain. Enjoy what you do and you'll develop a lot faster.

Member Rankings

Name	Standard	Previous
Besedin, Pavel	208	199
Padilla Cabero, Pablo	192	191
Smyth, Martin D	165	165
Draper, Adam GA	164	160
Collier, Lee E	162	155
Hope, Gary	156	158
Osondu, Victor	152	156
Lunn, John	137	130
Bricknell, Rob	135	133
Tallis, Mark E	135	142
Maddocks, Phil	133	139
Wise, Ken	129	127
Stockhall, Derek A	127	129
Johnson, Lennie	122	123
McKeown, A	117	120
Llewelyn, John D	114	108
Griffin, Chris E	106	112
Gough, Roy T	100	101
Hodkinson, Peter	100	102
Dyson, Phil	93	99
Willmott, Les	82	85

Club Officials

Chris Griffin

Secretary

John Lunn

Treasurer

John Lunn

BDCL Team 1 Captain

Ken Wise

BDCL Team 2 Captain

Phil Maddocks

WDCL Team 1 Captain

Ken Wise

WDCL Team 2 Captain

What chess program do you use? - Choosing the best one for you

Chess programs have revolutionised competitive chess in the world today. Even grandmasters regularly employ the use this 'new generation' tool. They can be used for opening preparation, position analysis, training & tutorials, and for most, live online games. The most popular today include Fritz and Rybka.

With the numerous options in the market today, most likely you already have a particular preference. I'd say the choice of which program to use is completely up to the user. Many are generally stronger than  human opponents and would suffice for almost any level of training. The open source software Crafty is more than suitable for players' needs and also can be used with a range of unique graphical user interfaces (GUI) (e.g. Crafty Chess interface).

Another particularly useful feature needed is game data storage (i.e. a chess database). To maintain organisation, view previous games, research opponents, track progress, and better still, get rid of those bulky score sheets, it's best to go digital. A popular tool is Chessbase which comes at a premium. Chessx is a free option when has some quite remarkable features.