Over the last couple of weeks I rediscovered Chess which I had not played since I was a kid. I have played a lot of games against the computer on chess.com and while I have slowly noticed an improvement in my game, I would like to try a more guided approach to learning the openings, strategies, etc.
I have already ordered a big old book on chess and now I am a bit unsure what software or online community offers the best tools to a beginner.
There are a ton of chess programs and different versions and it looks like either Fritz or Chessmaster is the way to go, but I noticed that chess.om also offers paid content in the form of tutorials, lessons to play through and play via internet.
If anyone can tell me if that content is any good, I would be willing to subscribe to them for a month or two, or what else is out there and not too costly(wouldn't want to buy software that costs more than 50$ or so for now)?
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And I ordered "The Game of Chess" by Siegbert Tarrasch.
The reddit FAQ has some good info, thanks for that, I will try some of the sites they recommend.
The chess club is something I didn't even think about, I will look into that.
No substitute from learning from someone real but it might be a good thing to hold you over in the meantime.
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You'll probably improve faster practising against humans than computers as well, since computers tend to make 'artificial' mistakes when their difficulty is turned down. If you play Chess on a free website against other people, you'll be given a rating based on performance that will match you with similar players, and give you a measure of how you're improving.
Youtube is full of chess stuff. Being Youtube it's free, likely to have people talking who like their own voice too much, and of totally random quality. But you can find some good videos too, just keep an eye on the 'likes' generally.
Finally, even if you don't usually find a reason to go to a local library, they probably have a few books on chess lying around. Could be worth looking into.
Not sure if it is available on other platforms.
Get your hands on as many of these videos as you can.