There are a few things you should learn after learning the moves. One is the value of the pieces, which we talked about in a recent column. Another is basic mating patterns. You can find these in any one of several excellent beginner's books by Yasser Seirawan, Bruce Pandolfini, Jeremy Silman to name a few. Two classic books for beginners: Chess the Easy Way by Reuben Fine and Modern Chess Strategy by Edward Lasker. I'm sure you can find all these at Amazon.com or your local bookstore. Once you know these basics, the best way to improve rapidly is to study the endgame first (simple K + P endings) then some openings. This gives you a good basis for knowing what your goals are in the middlegame, the heart of chess. Good luck with your new hobby!

Realize that if you even spend two seconds on every move that only gets you to move 30 in a 1 min lightning game. And as the average game is 40 moves, you are about 10 moves short and will lose a lot on time. One way you might enjoy lightning better is to play 0 1 that way you can spend some time thinking every so often without running the risk of losing on time every game. And the pace very close to the same as 1 0, so it makes an excellent practice tool for you.

This is the balance of a chess game (and what makes things interesting!). I would say the "ideas" are less important than the TIMING of these ideas. For example, let's say your opponent is trying to break in the center, while you are trying to crash through with a kingside pawn storm. Who will be first? If your opponent conquers the center first, there is a good chance your attack will fail. But if you can close the center, your attack may win. So it is a matter of balance and timing. In this example you can see that by first attending to the opponent's plan, you may succeed with your own......however, his plan may be too slow....it is conceivable that even if he succeeds in breaking the center, your attack will be too far advanced for him to stop. So, the real answer to your question is is comes down to TIMING. One tempo can make the difference between a win and a loss. But to answer your question: The best thing is to make moves that both further your plans AND stop those of your opponents. Study Tigran Petrosian's and Anatoly Karpov's games for great examples of this.