I got very interested in chess after downloading the 'Magnus Trainer' app. I hadn't particularly been looking to improve my chess playing (I knew the rules but rarely played and had never studied strategy before), but I'm a sucker for any app that promises to make good use of 'playing with my phone on the bus' time.

The app is a mix of minigames and interactive tutorials. I moved through them quickly because they're all bite-sized enough to do in spare minutes while waiting in line etc. The tutorials are short, single topic, interactive lessons that introduce a concept, give an example from tournament play, and sometimes quiz you about what the next move should be.

The minigames seemed dumb at first, (and I still hate Dream Escape) but after playing them a few times in order to continue advancing through the lessons I came to see them as well designed "wax on, wax off" style drills. 'Poker Face', looks like a memory game but it's actually teaching you to quickly evaluate which player would benefit more from exchanging pieces. Beach Bounty helps you instantly visualize where a piece could be n moves in the future. Flight Control, where you try to quickly tap the appropriate square when shown the coordinates in standard chess notation, seemed pointless until I tried reading books about chess and found the notation slowing me down. Once I'd drilled the coordinates enough that they were second nature, I could visualize them as I read instead of constantly referring to a diagram and counting the squares.

In my lay opinion, Magnus Trainer is a brilliant bit of educational technology. It's not teaching you anything you couldn't learn elsewhere, but it felt easy and fun to me. If I hadn't stumbled across it I don't think I ever would have delved as deeply into chess as I did.

If you are just starting out, and you know the rules and played a few games, I'd recommend these youtube videos [1] by John Bartholomew. Youtube has a bunch of other good videos for beginners, e.g. chessnetwork, st louis chess club, etc. Also, I wouldn't bother learning strategy until you get to like >1500 rating or so. If you get really good at tactics, you can get to 2000 without having much strategic understanding.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9iOeK_jvU

For beginners I'd recommend Agadmator's channel [1] (not mentioned here yet? I can't believe it). Regular dude that reviews recent & famous games, mainly for tactics and strategies. His channel and SC Saint Luis's [2] (particulary GM Finegold videos, guy's hilarious) are what made me come back to chess after decades.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR [2] https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub

You could also look into learning Go and playing on https://online-go.com/. Although, if it's all the same to you, Chess will be more popular so you'll be able to find games easier, and you'll be able to find real people to play with easier. Still, it's fun to learn Go and start to see the emergent complexity of the game from such simple rules.

The Chess club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis has a lot of great videos on youtube for beginner/intermediate players, and Ben Finegold is also hilarious.

I'll thrown in another youtube recommendation, IM Eric Rosen has a good mix of recorded streams and instructional videos on specific themes, all with extremely relaxed commentary. He plays the London System a lot which is a solid opening for newbies.

https://www.youtube.com/user/RosenChess/videos

For youtube, I recommend ChessNetwork. He's a self taught GM that explains his thoughts as he plays. He also has a beginners series to get you in the proper mindset. Really good guy, but a bit mysterious...

For actual playing I recommend something fast like 3min/0increment or 2/1. It kinda of resembles a video game at that point, where your knowledge and speed is helpful, you get to play a lot of games since they're short, and you don't have to live with your mistakes for very long if you mess up

There are lots of cool books- I have a strong preference for ones like Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess which present problems or walk through games with somewhat conversational commentary.

There are a lot of good suggestions (based on my admittedly limited experience) in this thread: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-books-for-a-beginner...

I've just started on Chess after not playing since I was a kid. And I didn't play much back then either. lichess has pretty decent tutorials, puzzles, etc. which will definitely help you get to a point where you can play like a novice ;)

There are endless resources on YouTube including lectures from grand masters on various topics from various chess clubs.

I've mixed lichess training, actual playing, and their tutorials with YouTube videos and I'm having a lot of fun and improving slowly. I can recommend Ben Finegolds' lessons as fun and instructive and various other members of the club he belongs to also have good lessons.

Just be warned, it's very addictive!

I agree with others that watching chess youtubers/twitch streamers is a good way to get into it. I recently compliled a list of youtubers that I have found to be very instructive and fun to watch (instructive meaning they play longer time controls and are good at explaining their thought process while they play):

https://catswhisker.xyz/log/2018/12/16/instructive_chess_you...

Genuinely curious - what makes chess such an intellectually engaging game over more "fun" games such as dota2 or StarCraft? These have all of the same Dynamics plus some. They are so dynamic, in fact, that the odds of just seeing the same "opening move" (hero picks) occur in two separate games are ridiculously low. Sure there aren't decades of documentation on the strategy and history of modern video games, but that isn't to say they aren't more complex.

https://www.chesstactics.org/ a free online book, I learned quite a bit from it.

ChessNetwork on YouTube is an entertaining channel to help you get excited about learning more. Jerry's enthusiasm for chess is infectious.

In terms of books, Play Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan is a great introduction to the game and first layer of strategy, tactics, openings, etc.

John Bartholomew's "Climbing the ratings ladder" video series on YouTube is a nice entry point, obviously looking at the lower part of the ratings ladder (e.g. 1000-1500).

Thousands of books, hundreds of websites, millions of videos. Of course with numbers that large the quality varies a lot. Chess has been popular for a long time. To get really good requires a lot of hard study, so most people who get good end up writing a book to try to get some payback for their effort. As a result there are probably more books on chess than all other games combined.