Hi all,

Just signed up and was checking out the sample newsletters. Great stuff! I tried getting the White Belt 1-12 that is offered, but no response. Does anyone know if this takes a while to get? I'm most definitely going to go through all the issues in time, but I figured it would be best to start with 1-12.

Just to clarify, I don't mind paying for 1-12. I just wanted to start at the beginning. My current opening repertoire consists of 1. e4 2. qh5. I call it the Nakamura opening, but he plays it slightly better. Help!

I curse you all for not responding. 50 views and no responses. At least I got the title right...
I'll leave you with a useful quote so you won't feel like you've completely wasted your time reading these posts.


"Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you."
---Friedrich Nietzsche

Sorry brah. I get the impression that Mig is supposed to send the trial issues along with the first batch and just forgot to in this case. Isn't he replying to your emails?

I didn't know that. When you click on Issues 1-12 it just brings up an email addressed to web2@chessninja.com. So in that email I asked about getting those. If I have to buy the other ones to get the free ones, that's totally fine, but it doesn't seem that way. After getting no response from the web2 address, I did send one to Mig asking about it; no reply, but I figure he's busy with the holidays and I don't want to keep bugging him.

If all I have to do is buy some, great. But I need to know. If I get no response about the free ones, I'm afraid I'll get no response for the ones I pay for, ya know?

Thanks for replying.

I'm almost certain you don't have to buy more to get the free ones. Mig's just being slow to respond which seems to happen a lot.

Ok, I'll try to be more patient. Even if he's slow, he seems to be have a great thing going with those newsletters, so it will be worth waiting for. I'm curious, how helpful are they to you (or anyone else?) I've been playing for 5 years with no training, just some books and internet games (not counting the period I learned the game as a child, since I just learned how the pieces moved and didn't really play after that until recently.) I'm looking for something that will help me progress methodically, and those looked pretty good. Thoughts?

I'm not a subscriber which is why I didn't answer your question to begin with. I personally believe that at least the following things will make a beginner stronger:

-playing long games
-analysing games
-solving tactics from a collection of problems (protip: don't stop going through the collection before you see most solutions right away)
-learning endgames

From the samples I've seen I'd say the newsletters have "novel" ways of teaching tactics, which may or may not be useful, and some openings stuff which for many people is not that useful.

Then again, what do I know; I suck at chess.

Thanks for the tips. For tactics I got the Reinfeld books, "One Thousand and One Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations" and "1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate." I'm still going through Tarrasch's "The Game of Chess", which is helping my endgame, and I've got a few others: "Logical Chess Move by Move", "Lasker's Manual of Chess", and more I can't think of off the top of my head.
I know a few moves of a variety of openings, but not much. And I also don't know a lot of the strategy behind the various openings, which I hope would give me an idea of moves to play, even if they're not book.
Anyway, I still suck but I want to get better. Thanks for your help.

Should have added that two of the things you mentioned I need to start doing: Playing long games and analyzing them. I just recently started analyzing some of my games, and I rarely play long games. Usually it's 10-15 min per side, sometimes with an increment, usually not. I know that's probably bad.

I've certainly found that in fast games I just reinforce my own mistakes over and over again. The things you learn won't really sink in before you implement them in long games.

Don't worry too much about the openings. At a beginner level you should be fine playing the opening as if it were a special kind of middlegame.

Your books are probably fine. I first started going through Polgar's Chess which has a huge number of mate problems. It's great except for a tendency to have too many sacrifices as first moves, especially queen sacrifices. The book I use now (very seldom, sadly) is Blokh's Combinational Motifs (or something like that).

I've also heard "The Art of Checkmate" by Renaud and Kahn is a great one, but I haven't checked it out yet. Yeah, I have to start playing longer games...

In case you're still interested, the trial issues appear to be here.