What does it take to become a decent chess player?

I'm quite new to chess. I started playing about 8 weeks ago, playing about 3-4 hours per week. I have just started training with Chessmaster 10th edition and I beat players ranked around 1050.

What is a good training time per day? Is playing against a chess software a good way to learn. Do I need books? And, most important, how long would it take me to become a **decent** player?|||Caveat:

I am a rotten chess player, though I did manage to crawl up enough to play in a very local team for a short while.



I know a number of chess players, both amateur and professional.



Of the amateur ones, they generally do not study much, play mostly friendly games and can reach middling to good club-level ratings. They own books by some of the main masters that they have read, together with a book or two on their favourite openings. One of the amateurs I know has studied extensively, but not being competitive/aggressive, too easily loses interest in the 'fight'.



To become professional, you have to be very good to win enough to live on reasonably, and usually professionals extend their earnings by chess tuition and writing - columns and books as well.



Good chess players (professionals by and large)

have a large memory store of positions and the possible further plays from that and associated positions (and not just openings). have an ability to see the pattern of a position. Their memory is, to a great extent, classified according to positions, though they will memorise sequences of moves as well.

They have sets of patterns in their head for various blocks of, say, nine or twelve squares. For instance, in the openings, say the King's or Queen's Gambit, plus accepted or refused, or the Indian Defence. There are set routines and patterns for endings also to understand, starting king and pawn v. king. And you must not forget the mid-game!

They have very extensive book libraries, and now use the extensive chess databases available on the net. They study the games of other players, the masters, up-coming opponents and current 'fashions'.

They belong to at least one chess club and play regularly against other players. They go to lots of chess congresses. They carry a pocket chess set with them and use it for studying their own and other people's games, as well as for book study. They are often interested in other board games such as Go or Shogi, and learn to play them well. To be able to play well in a major tournament, you need to be fit. One professional I know, often did not do well at congresses until he made sure that his overall fitness was better. Certainly, things are much better now smoking has been banned in playing rooms. Oh, and record every game you play - writing down yours and the opponent's moves. Have a bound book for this, separate sheets become tattered or lost.

For beginners, books by the masters, such as Lasker, Capablanca, Alkehine, Euwe, and Botvinnik, can be turgid and very hard work. You will gradually work up to them^_^. I found 'Positional ideas in chess' by John Love helpful to thinking like a chess player, though there are many books aimed at starting players.|||if you want to become better than decent, then you need a good memory, so that you can memorize some openings, and a lot of perseverance, so that you'll be able to spend a lot of time practicing -- preferably against players rated 50-150 points higher than you, so that you can learn from them.



playing against software is good -- set it so that you win 30-40% of your games. you won't find may players in the 1100-1200 range who want to spend much time playing, so the software is best for you now -- later you might want to join your local Chess club.



at your level, the books you need are about basic tactics -- relative values of pieces, plus pins, forks, X-rays, overloading, ...



when you get to 1400-1500, you can start on books about strategy -- closed versus open positions, bishops versus knights, standard endgame positions...



when you get to about 1800, you will need books about opening theory to progress further.|||expect several years before your a "decent" player





1050 is really a low score.





ANY chess program is good





you can train 8 hours a day if you wish?....ONE hour a day is fine (you dont want to get obsessed with this)





get a chess clock !!...this will help you in the long run





get full size pieces ( 3%26amp;3/4 king)





get a full size chess board (with numbers %26amp; letters on the edges)|||Welcome to the wonderful World of Chess!





http://www.amazon.com/Game-Chess-Algebra鈥?/a>





http://www.amazon.com/Laskers-Manual-Che鈥?/a>





http://www.amazon.com/Chess-Praxis-Aron-鈥?/a>





http://www.amazon.com/My-System-Century-鈥?/a>





If you want to play well you absolutely need a solid foundation in the fundamentals of playing good Chess without a solid and thorough grounding in the fundamentals you'll become a fish (terrible player with no skill) who doesn't know what he's doing and your not going to get anywhere or make progress oh you'll beat weak players and people who are mediocre at Chess but when you face someone who plays well the wheels on your game will fall off and you'll become frustrated.





Books can never *ever* substitute or replace a very good teacher (if you can afford it) I highly recommend you take lessons from a Grandmaster, Woman Grandmaster, National Master/Fide Master.........





http://www.andrewmartinchessacademy.com/鈥?/a>





http://danheisman.home.comcast.net/~danh鈥?/a>





http://yelenadembo.com/





To apply what you learn from books and a teacher you need to gain experience and play lots of slow Chess and the best way to do that is by joining a club offline ok? don't bother with Chess online it's too saturated with cheaters who use sophisticated software to destroy their opponents.





You asked how long it will take to become a decent player? that really depends on you I mean you get what you put into it anyone who really studies and trains hard the right way can become a decent player I'd say roughly within a year to three years (decent meaning your not getting your *** kicked and making horrible lemons all the time) with lots of practice/patience.





Good luck and have lots of fun!|||I can鈥檛 play chess for the life of me, having tried one of those chess programs are being beaten regularly by a character called Neanderthal, who had strong faith in the attacking power of his king. However, there are a couple of good books which are worth reading even if you don鈥檛 play chess. One鈥檚 called The Inner Game, by Dominic Lawson, about the match between Kasparov and Nigel Short; long out of print but well worth looking up because it has some good insights into the psychology of the game. But Kasparov's book is so good - on chess, and on management/leadership - that I'd recommend you trot out and buy it. And I think the best way I can answer the question is to quote those of his sub-headings that brought me up short and really made me think. So here goes:



Play your own game, not your opponent's; don't watch the competition more than you watch yourself;



A frequently changed strategy is no strategy at all;



'Why?' turns tacticians into strategists;



Tactics must be guided by strategy;



Time trouble leads to a vicious cycle;



Ask 'What if ....?';



Be aware of your routines, then break them;



Preparation pays off;



Evaluation trumps calculation;



Freezing the game;



All change comes at a cost;



Originality is hard work;



Fear of change is worse than changing too fast;



Know why we make each mpve we make;



Make sure a good peace follows a good war;



Don't bring a knife to a gunfight:



How much infomation is too much?



Pruning the decision tree;



The initiative rarely rings twice;



The game can be won before you get to the board;



Staying objective when the chips are down;



The difference between better and different;



Intuition vs analysis;



Detecting a crisis before it's a crisis;



and so on ... the book illustrates every major point with an example of an actual chess game, and often an example drawn from business or politics. It's seriously brilliant, and if I were you I'd buy it and read it while listening to some Bach. (Why Bach? because he was a 'whole-picture' man as well. You can't compose a fugue one note at a time, because you've got to think about how it'll repeat, invert, change speed, etc., and all of that happens at the same time. Most chess players are musicians, either performers or listeners).



That may not be the answer you were looking for, but it switched on so many lights for me that I have to share it.