[dvirsky]

I'm a pretty bad player (mostly playing with my 7yo son), and I totally agree about the blunders thing. The most effective way to learn how to avoid them IMO is to play a lot against good algorithms - that might not play hard tactically at the easier setting, but never make stupid moves or fail to detect my own stupid mistakes. You can't win these games by lucking out :)

Not all computer chess programs behave like this, some of them, at the easier levels make stupid mistakes, or don't take advantage of my own oversights. I try to avoid these. Playing against other amateur players that don't always take full advantage of your stupid mistakes doesn't train you well enough for this.