Learning an Opening

You can't stop yourself, your excellency. We were discussing chess
seriously. Why do you interfere by ranting? Aslo this should be
moderated. Just leave us at what we're at.

Your post should say: "I don't think you write very well either", not "very
good". Maybe you wouldn't look like such a pompous fool if you would use proper
grammar in your tirades.

I share in your frustration with the amount of time and energy needed
to improve in chess. I started this past summer and it seems the
more I learn, the more I realize what I don't know.
I agree w/ your idea about becoming familiar w/ a few openings and
defenses and then slowly expanding from there.
I would like to pose a question to anyone w/ ideas....what is the best
way to improve your chess game? It seems like such a simple
question yet I find I'm never sure if I'm going about it the right way.
Lately I've just been playing, and I know that alone won't get me very
far. Any suggestions?

Ok all here is an enlightening note on this. When you first start
playing you just learn from other peoples moves and trial and error.
And in this most people do pretty good..but when you finally realize
that you are not beating the better people...books come involved.
Then (just as in Basic training) you learn just enought to get your @ss
really kicked!

Why? Because you are looking at chess in a new light. And playing
opening moves note by note...the better club players already know
this...the unorthodox moves you made beforehand confused them
enough that the game would last longer than it does now.

But DO NOT get discouraged...this is the path to being good...and that
path can lead to great if you want it. I did the same thing as a kid.

Learn a couple of openings...and then apply them...but you have to
study TACTICS. This will save a bad opening all the time.

For introductory players I always recommend the Seriawan "Winning"
series. These are pretty cheap...and you can always find 'em on
Ebay...which I buy alot of my books from. Got some informants the
other day (brand new $27) got 'em for $2.75 a piece.

As always..any questions or advice email me

Schliemann@alloymail.com

Dave

I fully support this opinion, Dave. Indeed one has to struggle through the phase during which one seems to play worse than before, and I
also believe that that's the right time to study tactics.

Although tactics will probably not help me enough in our game to recover from the opening, lol