Hello friend! ............... Welcome to one of the best {private} chess sites around. (Recognized as such by several national chess federations and also "C.J.A." Site of The Year for 2004.) ................ Check out my School of Tactics!! .......... Many improvements and NEW PAGES!!!! (Be sure to check the T.L.A. in 'Chess Life' for the tournaments in your area.) Thanks, and have a great day!!!

Click here to look for "chess" with the Google search engine.

A FIDE "Top 100" site.
Best site, CJA, for 2004.

All the
best
in chess.
(TM)

(Navigation bar
directly below.)

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Keep watching these pages as they grow and change!!

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     to see my
    Chess Items.

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Buy a book
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(And help me out as well!)

Some simple "chess basics."

Some advice to help you play.

(A few quick and simple tips to help you on the road to better chess.)

Click HERE to return to my Training Page.

Click HERE to return to my HOME Page.

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Click HERE to go to one site where the basics of how the pieces move are covered.

Click HERE to go to another page where the basics RULES of chess are covered.

Click HERE to go to another site where the basics of chess (&the rules) are covered.

You are almost done.

This is just some simple and quick advice to help you play better.

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- The basic building blocks of the chess board are the squares, time or tempo, and the pieces themselves.
- Every winning combination is an equation involving these simple factors.

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In chess, it is a struggle to control SQUARES, especially key squares.
(Key squares = in the center, or near your opponent's King. Also another example of a key square is an OUTPOST.)

In chess, we also try to impose our will on our opponent.

Former World Champion Emanuel Lasker said that chess is nothing more than a fight or a brawl. It is all mental, but the point is well taken.

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"Chess is Martial Arts for the Mind!"
USCF LIFE-Master A.J. Goldsby I

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The first thing you must do
get better is to master tactics.

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"TACTICS -
is the language through which chess is spoken."
USCF LIFE-Master A.J. Goldsby I

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A good definition of tactics would be the interplay and the interaction
of the different pieces and units with each other. This interchange will
often highlight the properties of the predominant pieces in a combination.

A combination is a series of moves, involving tactics,
linked together by a common idea or ideas.

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GM Larry Evans says until you are close to Expert,
"Your first name should be tactics, your middle name should
be tactics, and your last name should be tactics."
(GM Evans has won the U.S. Championship more than once. He has
had literally hundreds of students. So you should listen to him.)

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(I don't consider the Pawn a true piece. He is a foot-soldier. The Pawn is also unit of value, however.)

I can heartily recommend three books now for you, if you are interested. (You MUST read them in this order.)

# 1.) "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess." by GM Robert J. Fischer. This is a simple little book.
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(Actually two books in one.) But it has plenty of diagrams. You won't need a chess set, as there are plenty of diagrams. You can read it on a bus, subway, train, plane, boat, etc. It will reinforce all the lessons that you have learned here.

# 2.) "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess," by GM Patrick Wolff. A great book that you could spend months learning from.

# 3.) "The Complete Chess-Player," by Fred Reinfeld. This is my chess bible. I teach all my students out of it. I have designed a real curriculum for schools out of this book. I studied it myself many times.
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You could spend two or three years studying this one book. Do what I did. Study it once, after you have completed the above books. Then study again in six months. Then again in a year. You will be surprised at how much you learn in each repeated study of this book.

This is because experience is the BEST teacher!

After you have been playing for six months to a year is when your mind will be the most open!!

Enough "pearls of wisdom" and general stuff.
Let's get down to brass tacks.

There are THREE phases of the game -
The OPENING, The MIDDLEGAME, and The ENDGAME.

In the Opening your job is actual pretty simple. Get your pieces off the
back row, onto good squares; ready for the middlegame battle to come.

In the OPENING:
*** Try to move a piece only once in the opening.
*** Put it on a good square and leave it there.
*** Mass towards the middle of the board, and castle early!

In the Middlegame, your basic goal is to checkmate your opponent. You try to create weaknesses and outflank your opponent.
You also try to win material to use in the endgame. The primary emphasis in the Middlegame is TACTICS.
It is also generally good to have a PLAN!! (Strategy.)

In the Endgame, you normally try to convert a material advantage into a win.
The main emphasis in the endgame is to Shepard a Pawn to the last row to promote.

My advice to you is to use the "Three - Time" rule.
(This was taught a lot when I was a kid.)
Imagine what the piece will look on that square BEFORE you move it.
VISUALIZE the piece on that square.
Look at every move 3 times 'in your head' BEFORE you move it!!

*** Try to take a few minutes before every move. ***
("Sit on your hands.")
(This is what many chess coaches have advised their students.)

- Check all checks and check all captures. Pretend you are your opponent.
- What would YOU do if you had his position right now?
- What move could he make that might cause the greatest damage to your position?
- ALWAYS try to figure out a reason for your opponent's move.
- Try to guess his or her intentions. (Get inside your opponent's head.)

(This will be very difficult at first, but will get easier as you progress.)

Another good thing to learn is the "Points Value" of the pieces!!

"The Table of Material Value"

A Pawn =	One (1) point
A Knight =	Three (3) points
A Bishop =	Three (3) points
A Rook =	Five (5) points
A Queen =	Nine (9) points

This is a good way to keep track of the pieces and how you are doing.
Try to swap (exchange) a Knight for a Knight, A Bishop for a Bishop, A Knight for a Bishop and visa-versa; A Rook for a Rook, etc. This is not always possible, however. So always try to keep the points level. If you lose a Rook, try to get a Knight or Bishop and two Pawns. (5 points for 5 points.) If you lose a Queen, try to get a Rook, Knight and at least one Pawn in return. You should also notice another relationship, the higher the point value of the piece, the more powerful (powerful=greater movement capability) that piece is.

If you discover you enjoy chess, you should play!!
The more you play, the more you will enjoy it!

Go to the U.S. Chess Federation's web-site.
Buy a good book. Get a chess set. Find a club in your area.

Go to Chess <dot> Net and download their software.
Click HERE to go their web site.
Start playing chess on your PC, if you have one.

Go back to my Training Page!!!
There is a TON of good advice there on how to get better!
[You could also peruse my entire website(s). There is a great deal of stuff on chess here, plus you will find literally hundreds of links to other web-sites.]

That's it!! Go play some chess now!!!!

© A.J. Goldsby I, 2001.

CONGRATULATIONS!!

You have now finished and graduated from my,
"Chess Course for Beginners." You should now have more
than enough knowledge to play your first game of chess.

If you have enjoyed this, and would like to reinforce what
you have already learned, then I highly suggest you go to
The U.S. Chess Federation's web-site and purchase the PC program,
"Maurice Ashley teaches Chess."

I recommend it very highly!!

( I cannot recommend the above program strongly enough! It is excellent and
I GUARANTEE it will improve the play of ANY lower-rated player!!
I use it to teach my own children the game! )

If you have enjoyed this little course, and it has helped you,
please send me an e-mail.

I would love to hear from you. THANKS!!

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Just to let you know, this beginner's course was a work of love,
requiring well over 100 hours worth of work.

[ Maybe closer to 300 hours! I worked on this project intensively
for close to 3 months in an attempt to finish it! ]
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(I spent many weeks of work "putting my ideas down on paper"
... creating documents inside MS Word, before I even began the
actual process of building the web-pages.)

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No one is paying me for this, so I can truly say I did it solely for my love
of the game and my desire for more people to learn this great game!

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(Maybe I spent a whole lot more time than this, as I drew on resources
already inside my computer to make this course. Of course these
required time to make as well!!)

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If I was the one that taught you chess for the first time, that would make me happy.
One of my students is building a web-site. Its not ready yet, but (hopefully soon)
there you will be able to sign a register with your name to show ...
you learned chess here!!

You may also want to mail or e-mail The U.S. Chess Federation,
(media relations); to let them know what you think of this site and this course.

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(Page last updated: Monday; May 31st, 2004.)

Click HERE to get 365 FREE Chess Lessons!!!

Click HERE to read a good article aimed primarily at beginners.

AS A BONUS for completing the chess course, you should go to the following web-site:
I - Am - Coach-dot-com, (The official web site of IM Igor Khmelnitsky.) - Here you can
get lots of on-line help. (For a fee.) You can also take his free test and see how strong you
really are. Lots of other stuff too, plus games to look at on a really nice board. A lot of good
stuff here, so you should definitely check it out.

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Check out the very nice web site ... and learn more about chess!
It is from "Chess-Kids Academy," and it is very well done.

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Another good web site dedicated to younger players, and also founded with the purpose of bringing chess to schools, is: "Academic Chess," by E. Hicks. Its cool, check it out!

Read the very first UN-solicited e-mail ... that I felt was good enough to use as a testimonial!!

Some EASY TESTS aimed at the real beginner.

DOWNLOAD this course ... courtesy of the "World Chess Academy." (Click here.)

Click HERE to go the "About-dot-com's" webpage for beginners. (Good!)

Click HERE for more help for the beginner. ("Chess Area dot-com")

Click HERE to go to my home page.

Click HERE to return to my Training Page.

Click HERE to go to my "Annotated Games" page,
and go over a couple of real games of chess.

Click HERE to go to my OPENING SCHOOL!! (Page # 1.)