Chess is often perceived as a long, boring, complicated game. Wrong! Chess does not have to be any of those things.
New chess players often find the first moves of the game confusing and difficult, partly because there are so many pieces on the board to consider. Beginners also do not understand the point of the game.. how to win. Without a clear vision of the goal, just moving the pieces around won’t make much sense.
One easy way to learn Chess is to remove most of the pieces from the board. Begin play with only a few pieces on each side, perhaps just the King, Queen, and a few Pawns.
This greatly simplifies the learning process, and gives new players a chance to play a quick & simple game that will familiarize them with the board and a few of the pieces. Once the player is comfortable with how those pieces move, add one more piece to each side. A Rook, also known as the Castle, is a good choice for the next piece to learn. After each short game, add one more piece.
With only a few pieces to maneuver in each game, the game is much faster, more like a puzzle. The openness of the board also allows a player to occasionally Promote a Pawn, which is difficult to practice with a full board.
Promoting Pawns is a fun & usefull move, somewhat like “Kinging” in checkers. In Chess, if a pawn reaches the far side of the board, it can be traded for any other piece. With rare exceptions, a Queen is normally chosen as the new piece.
Not only does this method simplify the learning process, it teaches the new player to be Goal Oriented. People who learn Chess by starting out with a full array of pieces often get bogged down near the end of the game, not knowing how to finish off an opponent.
By learning the End-Game first, the player can start planning a winning strategy early in the game. They will learn to recognize end-game situations and know how to take advantage of them.
So by starting at the end of the game, you will get to play quick & easy games, easily learn how all of the pieces move and inter-relate, and in the long run you will have learned to play Chess much more effectively.
