How to Play Chess for Beginners: Complete Step-by-Step Guide

When I first watched serious chess players think for several minutes over a single move, I wondered what was happening in their minds. My perspective is slightly different because I started as a Go player, and have been playing and writing about the game in the past few years. When I started learning chess seriously, I was surprised by how different it felt from Go. Of course, it was a humbling experience and it is that humility that helped to form this guide. I wanted to write what I wish I had been told in an introduction: it's a practical introduction with a few honest truths about the places students get stuck in the learning process, free from all of the overly generic, “just practice and you’ll improve” instructions found in a lot of online tutorials.

This book takes you through every aspect from the board to your first 30 days of systematic training, what a true beginner needs. If you are completely new to chess, read this guide from the beginning. If you already know the basics, feel free to jump to the sections you need.

What Is Chess? A Beginner's Introduction

The roots and fundamental qualities of chess.

Modern chess developed in Europe around the 15th century, and the basic rules we know today have remained largely unchanged since then.

Many beginners first see chess as a game of kings, but the interesting part is that there is almost no luck involved. Every mistake comes from a decision made by one of the players. No dice, no hidden cards and no random drawings. All the squares that the pieces occupy are a direct consequence of their two choices; this is why chess has been used for centuries as a study of logic, memory and strategic thinking. This is why chess has remained popular in schools and why researchers often use chess positions to study pattern recognition and decision-making.

The first comparison that comes to mind is scale versus depth, especially because of my background in Go. A Go board contains 361 intersections, while a chess board has only 64 squares. However, the difference is not simply about board size. Go has a much larger number of possible moves in each position, and many decisions depend on long-term positional judgment. Chess has fewer squares, but the complexity comes from the unique abilities of different pieces and the importance of precise calculation.

Chess vs. Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) vs. Go — a quick comparison

Feature	Chess	Xiangqi (Chinese Chess)	Go (Weiqi)
Board size	8×8 (64 squares)	9×10 with a river divide	19×19 (361 points)
Pieces per side	16, six different types	16, seven different types	180/181 identical stones
Win condition	Checkmate the king	Checkmate the general	Control more territory
Piece movement	Fixed per piece type	Fixed per piece type, some restricted by "palace"	Stones don't move once placed
Skill emphasis	Tactical calculation, piece coordination	Tactical calculation, defensive structure	Positional judgment, whole-board balance

Coming from Go or Xiangqi gives you one advantage: you already understand that every move changes the shape of the board.

However, there is one adjustment that surprised me when I moved from Go to chess. In Go, a difficult position can sometimes be recovered through better whole-board judgment and long-term influence. In chess, one overlooked tactic can immediately decide the game.

Who Should Learn Chess?

Coming from Go, I initially expected my previous experience with strategy games to make chess easier. Instead, I discovered that chess requires a different kind of thinking: not only understanding long-term plans, but also calculating immediate tactical consequences.

However, chess has a reputation for being a children's game, partly due to the fact that the majority of schools have chess clubs and partly because pattern recognition is a skill that youngsters master easily. Chess is often introduced in schools and youth programs because it encourages children to practice concentration, planning, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. This is one reason why chess is often introduced in schools and youth programs. Formal learning in chess generally begins at age 6 to 8, but can begin in an informal way at a younger age, depending on the chess federation and coach.

It is almost always said to adults that they have "missed the window" to get good at chess. This isn't true. Children often don't have the discipline to sit through a slow opening principle explanation, but that's something that adult learners have. In the adult chess community, many have started playing the game more seriously in their 30s, 40s or beyond, and in a couple of years have reached the intermediate level of play with the same dedication they had to improving their games. Like puzzles and language learning, chess is now being touted as a cheap method of keeping the mind agile in the elderly, with the caveat that it is intended for adults.

When it comes to whether or not you are naturally gifted, the answer is: No, not naturally talented to get a respectable club level standard. For competitive chess, and any other skill, the faster you get to the top of the heap, the more talent you have. However, learning the rules, avoiding the obvious pitfalls and playing good, chess-like games is within the reach of almost anyone willing to study the game for a few months with a certain amount of dedication. I was a beginner myself, and my previous Go experience did not automatically translate into chess skill.

The Right Goals for Chess Beginners.

The one thing I see over and over among beginners is a focus on winning quickly. It's not and actively hinders you from progressing. A beginner who loses a game after having committed a large number of errors has learned little; a beginner who loses a game but realizes that he made a single error has learned a great deal.

What you should be trying to do in the first couple of months is to create a good mental picture of the position: what each piece is doing, which squares are weak, and what you are threatening your opponent with. This is a sort of understanding where your pieces belong and what squares matter that is required before speed and trickery. Many beginners want to jump straight into attacking ideas and beautiful checkmates. But strong chess starts with understanding where your pieces belong.

An important sequence to follow is "rules" first, "technique" (how pieces coordinate) next, then "tactics" (short calculated sequences) and finally "strategy" (long-term planning). This leaves holes and blind spots that will become apparent later on. The rest of this guide is organised in the same way as the structure, which you can use as a syllabus instead of an article.

Learn about the Chessboard and the Chess Pieces (Your First Step).

A Chess Board's Structure.

The chess board is 8x8 so there are 64 squares, each of which has an alternating light-dark checkerboard pattern. Such a pattern is not just decorative: the alternating pattern is what dictates the movement of bishops as each bishop is locked for the entire game to a square of one color.

Chess players refer to position with three types of lines. A rank is the row of 8 squares across from White's side to Black's side, as shown. A file is a column of squares (from the White's point of view) from a to h. Diagonal – a line of same-colored squares sloping from corner to corner, diagonal movement is the path taken by bishops and is part of the queen's movement.

Beginners don't realize how important board orientation is. The setup rule is: "light square on the right": each player is to have a light colored square in the bottom right corner of their board, from his or her own point of view. If the board is oriented upside down, then even all of your opening memory (based on coordinates such as e4 or Nf3) will be questionable since the coordinate system relies on the board's orientation.

Name and number of the chess pieces.

There are 16 pieces each side, divided into 6 kinds of pieces. The king is the most important piece. You don't lose the king itself — the game ends when the king is trapped in checkmate. The queen is the strongest chess piece on the board. The rook can only move in straight lines and is a particular threat in open files towards the end of the game. The bishop also moves diagonally, keeping to the same colour throughout the tournament. The knight moves in an 'L' like shape and can move over other pieces. The pawn is the least powerful piece, but is the backbone of almost every position.

Each side starts with one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns.

The significance and importance of every piece.

Chess players use a simple material value system to estimate the relative strength of pieces. This is not a rulebook number, there is no rulebook that defines what these numbers are, but it's a convention that all serious players pick up early, as it will help them instantaneously determine if they should trade pieces.

Piece	Approximate Value	Practical Notes
Queen	9 points	Combines rook and bishop mobility; rarely worth trading for less than a queen or heavy material
Rook	5 points	Weak early, dominant in open endgames
Bishop	3 points	Strongest with open diagonals; pairs well with the other bishop
Knight	3 points	Strongest in closed, blocked positions; weak on the board's edge
Pawn	1 point	Individually weak but structurally decisive
King	Not assigned	Cannot be captured or traded; losing him ends the game

It's important to note that these are heuristic starting numbers and not physics. Queen + knight in a dominant position on a central square can beat queen + bishop caged behind their pawns. Passed pawns early in the game can be worth less than a piece, but passed pawns late in the game can be worth more than a piece. Strong players continually update their value sense on the position of the piece, rather than the type.

For a total beginner, the takeaway is as simple as that: never exchange a more valuable piece for a less valuable piece for no reason; be very careful giving up your queen. You can go over that once you’ve played a few more than fifty games.

How Chess Pieces Move: Complete Beginner Guide?

The rules are the King's Movement Rules.

The king can move exactly one square in any direction (up, down, left, right or diagonally). Although the most important piece on the board, the king has limited movement and must be protected throughout the game.

A king cannot move to a square that is attacked by an enemy piece, even if that square appears safe or contains a piece that could otherwise be captured. This is the only reason why there's such a thing as 'check' in chess: if you have a king that is checked, you have to check it first.

Many beginners hesitate to castle because moving two pieces at once feels strange. But after losing a few games with the king stuck in the center, most players quickly understand why castling exists. It has a few restrictions: Neither the king nor the rook involved can have moved previously; all squares between the two must be empty; and the king is not allowed to be in check at the time of castling, For beginners, the main idea is simple: castling helps protect the king early and brings a rook into a more active position.

The Rules of Movement to be used by the Queen.

The queen can move any number of squares in a straight line horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, as long as no piece blocks her path. With a value of approximately 9 points, the queen is the most powerful piece on the board. Her ability to move in almost any direction makes her a powerful attacking weapon and one of the most flexible defensive pieces in many positions.

However, beginners should be careful not to bring the queen out too early. Because the queen is so valuable, opponents can often gain time by attacking it with less valuable pieces while developing their own position.

Explain the movement of the Rook, Bishop and Knight.

The rook can only be moved by rank or file and no other means, no matter the distance. This is because rooks do best on open files (columns that are not blocked) and beginners are advised to not start trading rooks away too early in the game as they can prove their real strength later in the game.

The bishop has the power to make diagonal moves for any distance along the board, and is colour bound - each bishop is always confined to a single colour for the whole game due to the colouring of the board. This is why the chess players say "the light-squared bishop" or "the dark-squared bishop", because they are two different bishops on two different halves of the board.

The knight's movement is L-shaped: Two squares in one direction, then 1 square in an orthogonal direction. The knight is the chess piece that can move in a knight's move, which means that it can jump straight over other pieces (friendly or enemy) without being blocked. The knight's movement is truly an enigma to new players, as it is the most difficult piece to master, so don't despair, it may take you a few games to master.

Pawn Movement Rules

Pawns may only move forward, one square at a time and cannot move backward. It may move two squares on its first move, a special move which is specially made to make the opening up of the game quicker.

The most typical beginner error is that pawns capture in a different manner than they move. A pawn captures diagonally - one square forward and to either side. A pawn placed directly in front of another pawn does not attack the other pawn, it is prevented from attacking the other pawn.

The picture is completed by two special rules governing the pawns. Promotion is when a pawn reaches the opposite side of the board (8th rank for White, 1st rank for Black) and is promoted to a queen, rook, bishop or knight, typically a queen. En passant is a special pawn capture that is only possible immediately after an opponent's pawn moves two squares forward from its starting position and lands beside your pawn. Nearly all beginners overlook en passant and are surprised the next few times it occurs in a game, so don't feel bad if the other person finds a way to get it against you first.

How to Start a Chess Game: Board Setup and First Moves

The rules for setting up the pieces.

The rooks are placed in the corners of the back rank, next to them come the knights, then bishops, and the king and queen in the middle. The queen is placed on her own colour square, while the king occupies the remaining central square.

Both sides occupy the whole of the second rank (or seventh rank) and create a solid wall in front of the pieces in the back rank. White and Black are symmetric across the board; their pieces are placed in the same manner on opposite sides.

Who Moves First in Chess?

White always moves first in chess. This is an official rule of the game, not a player preference or strategy choice. Because White gets the first opportunity to develop pieces and create threats, statistical analysis shows that White has a small advantage at all levels of play.

Players play one move at a time, and alternately after White's initial move. In the context of Chess, a “Move” is one player's move to change the position of one piece from one square to another, with the condition that the move is legal, i.e., a piece may only be moved to a square that it is legally allowed to occupy.

Learning the notation and notation conventions of chess.

When you're just getting started, recording your games may seem like a formality, but it will pay off in a short amount of time. Notation allows you to analyze your own games, after they are played, to help you locate your errors; to study opening theory books or databases; and to watch the notation of published professional games, which is impossible if you can't read the notation system.

Each square is given a unique address, a letter a to h for the file, a number 1 to 8 for the rank, the queen's starting square for White is d1 and king's starting square is e1. The moves of the pieces are usually written using a capital letter for the piece (K for king, Q for queen, R for rook, B for bishop, N for knight, and no letter for pawn) followed by the square to which the piece moves, for example "Nf3" means "knight moves to f3. There are a few additional symbols to complete the system: "x" means capture, "+" means check, "#" means checkmate, "O-O" means kingside castling, and "O-O-O" means queenside castling.

How to Win at Chess: Checkmating the King

What Is "Check"?

A king is in check when it is currently attacked by one or more enemy pieces. Being in check does not mean the game is over. The player must respond immediately by escaping the check, blocking the attack, or capturing the attacking piece.

There are only three legal answers to consider. The king may be moved to a square which is not attacked. The attack can be blocked with another piece between attacking piece and the king, for attacking piece a queen, rook or bishop and the piece is moving along a line. Alternatively, you can capture the attacking piece. If all three of these aren't available, then the position is checkmate.

What Is "Checkmate"?

Checkmate is when a king is in check, cannot be moved to safety, cannot be blocked and attacking piece cannot take the check. There is no other rule that takes precedence over Checkmate, and the player who gives checkmate wins the game as soon as and as clearly as possible.

It is important to note here that new players may think that they have more pieces or a better start means that they will win. It doesn't. That's why it's important to be safe with the king even in the opening, when you have a huge material advantage.

Other Ways a Chess Game Can End

Checkmate is not the only way a chess game can end. A game can also finish as a draw in several situations.

A draw may happen when both players agree to end the game, but there are also official drawing rules. One of them is stalemate, which occurs when the player whose turn it is to move has no legal moves available, but their king is not in check. Many beginners confuse stalemate with checkmate: in checkmate, the king is under attack and cannot escape; in stalemate, the king is safe but the player has no legal move.

Another drawing rule is the threefold repetition rule. If the same position occurs three times during a game, a player may claim a draw. The fifty-move rule allows a draw claim if 50 consecutive moves have been played without any pawn movement or capture by either player.

What Skills Should Chess Beginners Learn First?

The first phase – quickly build up your pieces.

The opening is the first part of the game (usually the first 10-15 moves) where the main object is to move the pieces from the back rank into more active positions. The four center squares (d4, d5, e4, e5) are the most talked about in opening advice, and this is because pieces in or targeted at these squares have more squares and influence on the rest of the board than those confined to the edges.

Knights and bishops are typically developed before the queen and rooks, as they're the pieces best suited to active early squares, and don't have to be exposed to attack and being chased around the board. One of the common mistakes of beginner players is to move their queen out too early — I'll explain why in the mistakes section below. The last fundamental opening priority is to finish the castling as early as possible as it performs two duties: to move your king towards safety and moves the rook towards the center of the board.

The Middlegame: Attacking – Defensive Awareness.

After the initial game of the first few moves the game has become the Middlegame, where tactical and strategic moves dominate. During this phase, you have to continuously monitor two things – what is your opponent doing to pose a threat and what are you doing to create an opportunity for yourself. Mostly winning games below intermediate level are played by considering only one side's moves, overlooking a basic threat by the other side; beginners get engrossed in their own game and don't remember what the opponent is doing.

The idea of seeking out opportunities, instead of waiting for them to fall in one's lap, can be learned through repetition. As much, or more, important is determining when it is a good time to trade and when it is a bad time to trade, trading in itself is neither good nor bad. The focal point of the player's own valuable pieces, especially those engaged in some type of overall defensive or attacking task, completes the basic middlegame repertoire of a beginner.

The Endgame: How Great Players Differ From Good Players

The endgame is when most of the pieces have been removed from the board and it is played differently from the previous stages. In the endgame, a king which was hiding the entire game for safety now becomes a fighting piece, as there are many less enemy pieces which can threaten it.

Here the technique of pawn promotion plays a crucial role, because if one pawn can make it safely to the other side of the board, it can be a new queen and determine the outcome of the game. Simple positions like king-and-pawn endgames, or the checkmating technique with a king and a queen with a single king, are extremely useful for the beginner and much of the time don't require much study time, as they occur in an overwhelming number of games that never become a "textbook" endgame position.

The Most Common Mistakes Made by Beginners (and How to Avoid Them)

Only concentrating on attack, neglecting defence.

It's only natural that attacking moves will draw new players to the game, as they feel like they are doing something exciting and proactive. The trouble is that an attack that ignores your opponent's attack is often counter-productive: you push your pieces forward, your opponent takes whatever they don't defend and something you moved onwards doesn't achieve anything but fails. Get used to asking yourself what is the best thing that your opponent can do next, instead of you doing it.

Opening: Same Piece repeated.

In the beginning it's easy to be tempted to push another piece, usually a knight or bishop that has played a bold opening move, further and further across the board. Every subsequent time that same piece moves is a move not spent developing another piece, meaning that your opponent completes development before you – and has a significant tempo advantage. When measured competitively, this is one of the most frequent ways in which a new game goes awry before move 15.

Being rushed out to sea with the Queen.

The queen is a very strong and influential unit, so that is what beginners typically want to do as soon as they deploy her: to begin attacking targets. An easy target in practice is an early queen: your opponent develops minor pieces while you're trying to cover up for your queen but are constantly losing time and movements to move it back to safety, while their pieces move freely without any restrictions. The rule is that the queen should not be taken out until your knights/bishops are developed and your king has castled.

Neglecting King Safety.

One of the worst habits a beginner can get into is to castling because he/she is excited about an attacking idea. If the king is not castled and is in the center of the board, he will be exposed to attack after attack as opportunities will arise, and if he fails to save any of these attacks, the game can be lost despite a powerful attack a few moves previously. Don't wait until the last minute to be safe, be safe first.

A Practical 30-Day Chess Learning Plan for Beginners

Structure is very important to beginners and when beginning a "just play a lot" approach, one would expect slow and uneven progress. A practical 4 week course that represents the approach of many chess teachers teaching new adults.

Week	Focus	Core Activities
Week 1	Master the fundamental rules	Learn the board's coordinate system, memorize how each piece moves, and practice basic captures until they feel automatic
Week 2	Learn opening principles	Practice controlling the center, developing minor pieces efficiently, and castling on schedule in every practice game
Week 3	Train basic tactics	Study and drill fork, pin, and discovered attack patterns using tactics puzzles rather than only full games
Week 4	Play and review complete games	Play full games against similarly rated opponents, analyze your own losses to find the exact move that went wrong, and begin studying a small number of classic annotated games

At the end of this month you will not be a strong player; thirty days is not a very long period in a chess player's life, but you will not have any trouble during a game (no rules confusion), you will have eliminated the most common opening errors and will begin to notice simple tactics that crop up on the board. This is the basis for all hours of study thereafter to be more productive.

Basic Chess Tactics Every Beginner Should Learn.

Tactics are brief, predictable series of moves, which result in the win of material and/or checkmate, and most games below intermediate are won through tactics. While strategic planning is a long-term process, tactics may be clearly learnt by repetition – pattern recognition can be one of the most rewarding study exercises for a beginner, because it is really easy to learn a lot of them in a short amount of time.

The four essential tactical patterns for beginners

Tactic	Core Idea	Common Example
Fork	One piece attacks two or more enemy targets simultaneously	A knight landing on a square that attacks both the enemy king and queen at once
Pin	An enemy piece is restricted because moving it would expose a more valuable piece behind it	A bishop pinning an enemy knight to its own king along a diagonal
Skewer	A high-value piece is attacked first, forcing it to move and exposing a less valuable piece behind it	A rook attacking an enemy king along a file, forcing it to move and exposing a rook behind it
Discovered attack	Moving one piece out of the way reveals an attack from a different piece behind it	A knight moving aside to reveal a bishop's attack along a previously blocked diagonal

Early attention should be paid to the knight fork, as it is particularly useful in attacking two seemingly unrelated pieces, which are distant on the board, because of the knight's peculiar movement. Not only are you able to offer them to your opponent, but you can also defend against them as well.This is one of the quickest ways to take the pressure of careless losses as a beginner - by recognising opportunities for the other player and opportunities that present themselves for yourself.

The best way of choosing the right chess equipment for a beginner.

Selecting the Appropriate Chessboard Size.

The right chessboard size depends on how and where you plan to use it.

For casual home games, family play, and beginner practice, a board with squares around 1.75 to 2 inches wide is usually a comfortable choice. It provides enough space to clearly see the pieces without making the board too large for storage or everyday use. Many home players prefer 2-inch squares because they offer a good balance between playing comfort, visual clarity, and storage convenience. For most beginners buying their first physical chess set, a 2-inch square board with comfortable weighted pieces is usually the best balance between everyday play and long-term enjoyment.

For tournament and serious club play, the standard size recommended by major chess organizations is a board with 2.25-inch squares and a king height of approximately 3.75 inches. This size provides enough space for larger weighted pieces and is designed for long playing sessions.

When choosing a chessboard, beginners do not need to start with a professional tournament set. A well-made board with comfortable piece sizes is usually more important than choosing the largest option. As players become more experienced and play more frequently, upgrading to a wooden board with weighted pieces can provide a more enjoyable playing experience.

Making the Best Chess Pieces Choice.

Comparing common chess piece materials

Material	Feel and Durability	Best Suited For
Wood	Warm feel, ages well, moderate cost	Long-term home use, gifting, serious hobbyists
Plastic	Lightweight, inexpensive, easy to clean	Beginners, children, travel sets
Weighted pieces	Wood or plastic with a lead or metal core for stability	Anyone who wants pieces that resist accidental bumps
Magnetic sets	Pieces and board both contain magnets to hold position	Travel play, boards used on uneven surfaces, or with young children nearby

Should Novices Use an Expert Chess Board?

No. Buying expensive equipment before you know whether chess will become a long-term hobby is usually unnecessary. At first, just a plastic chessboard, or even a chess app for digital device is more than enough for the first couple months of learning. If they are consistently playing and having fun with the game (a good indicator is if they start to think about other positions outside of the games) then it is a good time to consider a wooden set with weighted pieces — both for the improved feel during play and because a nicer set will lead to more consistent practice.

So, How to become a Chess player?

Making Progress through Real Games.

No substitute for real time playing. Playing with friends or family can help you get a feel for the game without the pressure, and gaming online lets you find a game with players of the same skill level, and can provide a recap of game moves performed after the match. For all of these reasons, there are certain things that can't be replaced by online play: the discipline of having to play with a physical clock, the necessity of players playing in a way that is in keeping with the etiquette of the game, and the fact that stronger players are often willing to give a beginner a quick informal look at his or her game.

Studying Classic Games.

Playing through annotated classic games allows you to see how players that have learned the same basics that you are learning, make decisions. Become more aware of the longer-range considerations, such as why a strong player decided to play a certain opening position, or why they were setting an opponent's position up for ultimate weakness several moves earlier, before playing it. This type of study makes it easier to develop the feel for the patterns that will provide you with good moves down the road without having to 'calculate' everything yourself.

The use of Chess Learning Tools.

The software is a tremendous advantage to modern chess study – not available to previous generations. One of the most effective ways to get pattern recognition up and running quickly is to use tactics-training platforms which provide endless puzzles at a level suitable to the current user. After the game, the game-analysis engines can examine the game, and mark down the exact moves at which your appraisal of the position was incorrect, and often, more accurately than a human analysis engine. Many courses are available in a structured format that follows a sequence of learning and offers a great deal of accountability, which is sometimes missing with self-directed study – many are geared towards absolute beginners.

Frequently Asked Questions About Learning Chess

Do you think Chess is hard to learn?

The rules are really very simple, most people can learn the rules of all the pieces in one afternoon. It isn't the rules that take time, it's the judgment: knowing what to look out for, understanding what lies ahead and knowing how to respond in certain situations with consistent accuracy. If one is striving for a strong club level, then it normally takes months to years of consistent and deliberate practice to achieve that level of skill – and that's the case with chess too.

What is the length of time it takes to learn chess?

All the rules can be studied in 7 days. Realistically speaking, it is possible to play full and reasonably sound games (no major rule misunderstandings, losing material in the simplest of ways) within 30 games or just about a month of consistent practice, following the 30-day learning plan outlined earlier in this guide. After that, any strength that the athlete can attain is meaningful only through continued training and its practice; there's no quick way to get experience hours.

Age at which to Begin Chess Learning for Kids?

Chess teachers generally agree that some age between 4 and 6 is a good time to start chess because it is easier to teach chess to them, and doesn't involve complicated strategy. However, this starting age is not the same for every child; some children are ready to be introduced to formal lessons at a younger age, some at an older age and forcing the game on a child before he or she is ready to play it is likely to cause an adverse effect no matter the age.

Chess vs Go: Which is Harder?

That is a recurring theme and after playing both games properly, I'm going to say that they're hard in different ways and that there is no one game that is objectively more difficult. Chess is a game that relies on exact calculation and tactical acumen in a fairly limited board with a single wrong sequence running can cost the player the game. Go emphasizes positional judgment (as opposed to chess, which emphasizes endgame analysis) and a longer-term thinking of territory, and has branching complexity that is much greater than chess, so that even the highest level computer engines were only able to solve Go's problems convincingly in the past decade, well after they solved chess. Both make no sense in terms of "easier" in that they both provide a challenge to a different type of mental ability.

Conclusion.

No chasing after wins, EVERYTHING ELSE.

If you have one thing to take away from this whole guide it would be this: Don't view each move as a standalone, but rather how it is helping the player achieve the desired result. If you win with your opponent's error, then you learn nothing; if you lose in a manner you can clearly appraise, then you learn a lot. In the first few months focus on the understanding, not the outcome and the outcome will follow.

Keep with Basic Training.

But there are three things that really develop chess strength: Rule fluency, tactical pattern recognition and honest post-game review — none of these are about having the right chess ability or luck, they are not about memorizing opening lines that you don't understand. Familiarize yourself with these basic concepts frequently, even after you get to more advanced concepts, as gaps in the fundamentals often reoccur when you're being put to the test–it's the games that are most important to you.

Begin to develop chess thinking skills from the first game.

The biggest change beginners experience is not learning more moves — it is learning to see the board differently.At first, you only see your own ideas. Good players learn to see the whole position, including what the opponent wants to do next.