Hello everyone! I'm making this post one of my first as it is relevant to one of the questions I had intended to ask on this website. Let me begin by stating that I am a beginner in chess and recently I've taken a great rekindled interest in it though I'm finding difficulty on where to take the first steps in the whole torrent of the learning process. For the past month I've trailed through 'Back to Basics, Fundamentals' by Branislav Francuski as well as the majority of the second edition of the 'Chess for Dummies' book. Both were extremely instructive and helpful to get me past the very core basics of Chess and I've just recently begun pushing through '202 Checkmates for Children' by Fred Wilson and Bruce Alberston which have 101 'checkmate in one' and 101 'checkmate in two' puzzles which I've found to be quite helpful and a lot fun solving. All of which have been helpful and obviously helped me improve but what would be the key area to focus on? Tactics, endgame, opening? Before I make a wall of text here I'll end this post in a quote that seems to be the advice of most GMs (well at least their quotes). “In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before
everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and
mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening
must be studied in relation to the endgame” -Jose Raul Capablanca