Yes. I hated Chess almost all my life, then got really into it a few years ago. I'm still very bad, mostly because I'm optimizing for having fun completely at t

Yes. I hated Chess almost all my life, then got really into it a few years ago. I'm still very bad, mostly because I'm optimizing for having fun completely at the expense of getting better (e.g. I only play 5 minute games, which are terrible for learning but, hey, that's what I like). So caveat here that I might not be the best person to ask :) Having said that, what really helped me other than various tutorials is the basic goal of the game. The goal seems like it's to checkmate, and I focused a lot of effort on that. And that is theoretically the goal. But really, most of the time, especially in the beginning, you're not going to be spotting fancy checkmates and neither are your opponents. So your main focus in the beginning should actually be about winning a material advantage (capturing something of theirs without them capturing you in return.) Then, once you have an advantage, just try to trade off all the other pieces until there's nothing left. I didn't understand this idea at first. But it makes sense like this - if you have the full board, except the opponent is missing a rook, anything can still happen. But imagine now almost all the pieces are gone, except you have that extra rook and he doesn't. Now, it's a much easier and winnable game, and there's nothing the opponent can do anymore. Of course you have to know how to win a rook endgame, but that's fairly easy to drill. So my advice - drill how to win with two Rooks, with a Queen, and with one Rook. Then most games boil down to trying to get some extra material, and then trading off all the pieces, and then winning that endgame.