Any suggestions from the HN crowd on what may have provided you an "ah ha!" moment for chess strategy in general?
1. Choose a chess opening and stick to it. That means you'll always know how to react at the beginning of the game. 2. Counting. If your piece has more defenders than attackers, it's safe. If you're attacking your opponent's piece more times than it's defended, you can control that square. One of the biggest issues I had when starting out was literally just miscounting attackers and defenders. 3. Basic tactics. There are three fundamental tactics in chess: pins, forks, and skewers.
Other than that, watching chess Youtubers is pretty helpful. Some good examples are Aman Hambleton's beginner videos[1], and Daniel Naroditsky's "speedruns"[2]. The latter can be slightly more advanced but still very understandable imo. There are other good channels like Hikaru Nakamura's, Gotham Chess, chessbrah, and Eric Rosen but I think the two I suggested are the best.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axRvksIZpGc [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfjI4jEY58s&list=PLT1F2nOxLH...
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.
* Start with climbing the rating ladder. He explains the basics and mistakes players at each level makes and how to avoid them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2huVf1l4UE&list=PLl9uuRYQ-6...
* Watch his games (ideally with 10minutes or more time control) where he explains his thought process behind each move and what he is anticipating. This is priceless!
* Analyze your own games after you play
His style of cheesey, caustic humor isn't for everybody. However, he GETS beginners.
"GM Ben Finegold's Message to Beginner Chess Players"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5bCfwCyo18
"The Reason People Don't Get Better At Chess According to Ben Finegold"
If you're not motivated because it's confusing and unrewarding to fail, then persistence and practice is really the only solution.
Replacing chess with go. :P