in Chessmaster 9000 how to choose an opponent?

[stwils]

I have no idea what my rating is. Probably as low as they go. How can I find an opponent in Chessmaster that I might possibly beat sometime?

(How do I find my rating?)

I love playing and getting instruction. To tell the truth, I usually go to the Kid's room.

stwils

 

[stwils]

I figured out how to get an opponant - but not in the kid's room. Just Game Room and select opponant. This is really embarrassing. I chose the lowest rated person - a little 7 year old girl, Cassie.

She made some bad moves, but I had a hard time knowing just what to do. Thank God for the Mentor "quick hint" and "blunder."

With "quick hint" i finally won, but it took a long time.

I do chess puzzles. But it is so much harder when you are playing a real game.

Sometimes it is overwhelming at all the enemy pieces facing me. And no matter what you do, it seems there is always a threat out there.

I want to learn to play well. What books would you recommend? What else would you suggest for me to get my game confident and improved?

Beaten by a little 7 year old girl...

stwils

 

[Narz]

No worries mate. At your level it's possible to make massively rapid progress.

Personally, I find it more fun facing human opponents. If I were in your shoes, I'd join a site like chess.com & get some coorespondence games going with people there. Ask your opponents if they will go over the game with you "post-mortem" (after the game) and, if they won, ask them what there thought process was and how they exploited your mistakes (and if you won, still try to see how you could have played even better).

As for books, there are tons of good beginner books out there. Ones with lots of chess puzzles are great. Ingraining the tactical & mating patterns into your head will take you from pure beginning to almost intermediate level in & of itself. That & not dropping pieces!

Annotated games are good to study though probably might be a bit too much at the pure beginner level (I wasn't into them much at all until I was around 1300 or so). If you want to study annotated games though I'd suggest just searching your local library for a book containing annotated chess games geared towards beginners. Also you can find a lot of free chess improvement material online.

Stuff like this (annotated Paul Morphy game) is great.

 

[stwils]

Thanks, Narz, for your suggesting chess.com. I just joined. Looks like a great site.

stwils

 

[Narz]

Of course

 

[Panzar75]

If you are looking for something to read there is plenty available for free online. I suggest taking a look at Chesscafe.com. Especially the column called "Novice Nook". Look for the archives and read all of them.