I’ve been teaching chess to kids in after-school programs for years. And of course, you aren’t in 5th grade, but it helps to start at the very beginning. First and foremost, you’ve got to play a lot. Learn your tendencies and where they don’t work. Review famous games, blunders, ! moves, and understand why certain moves were done. Do tons of chess puzzles. Learn some various openings. Fail with them. Play with them. Learn with them. Use them. Learn the basics: forks, skewers, pins, discoveries, etc. Know all the rules, and know them well. Most people think the rules stop after learning how to castle, but there are deeper rules, such as the # of moves it takes for a game to end in a draw, three sets of mirrored moves ending in a draw, et al. Learn how to checkmate with just a few pieces. Study the pieces individually, and where how they best attack. Control the center. Don’t castle too early. Throw away everything you’ve learned and then learn what you want to, do what you want to. I got a very good base by smoking tons of pot in college and playing on Yahoo!. But I didn’t start becoming better until I became a “student” of the game. You’d be amazed at how much you learn my just observing. Totally all over the place, I know. Check out the NYTimes’ online chess blog, called Gambit. They post recent chess championships matches, and you can review them move by move. Sometimes each move will have commentary attached also. Look up the “immortal game” and the “evergreen game”; watch youtube clips of “chess tricks”....that’s a good start :)