@DQ12 has influenced me to start playing a ton of chess on chess.com
What is a good way to learn more in-depth chess strategy? I know how to move all the pieces to play with the kids but I'm usually only thinking 2-3 moves down the road and the games are rock fights where the board looks like a barren wasteland by the end of the game.
Play daily games on the chess.com app. That way, you can consult youtube and other chess websites between moves to learn how to play openings and how to respond to what the other player does. Also do the daily puzzle and puzzle games.
This is 100% cheating by the way and will get your account banned on chess.com. The more legit way to do this is to play the games on your own, then go back and analyze your games afterward with an engine that will tell you the best move in any of the game's positions. Or (afterwards) learn what the opponent did to f you and the best way to counter via youtube/engine/etc.
Like if you're a london player and you get hit with an immediate E5, you can go research after the game to find the theoretical response to D4 E5. "Huh! This is called the Englund Gambit," you say to yourself. "When this happens, i'm objectively better because I can play moves like D takes E, develop my King's knight and Queen's bishop to protect the pawn, and when the enemy queen comes out to get tricky, I can put her in a really uncomfortable spot after I move my bishop back to D2 and she takes B2." Congrats, you're ready to win most of your games whenever schmucks try to get cute on you and hit you with E5. Learning and applying all of that is really fun and how it's supposed to work.
I'm not incredible by any stretch, but my rapid rating is about 1300 or so. There are several good youtubers that got me a lot more in a position to more or less know what i'm doing. Anyway, for the most part, as a beginner, all you really need is several openings plans and an understanding of common tactical patterns. Figure out what opening you want to play as white -- a lot of good resources on youtube. I play and would recommend the london, as you can (for the most part) spam the first 6 moves or so. As black, really just have a response to the most common white openings (E4/London/Queen's Gambit). Otherwise, you can just spam the King's Indian Defense if you want a solid setup you can play in any game. Plenty of good videos on the KID out there.
A few recommendos:
Gothamchess - He's an international master/twitch streamer/youtuber. I watch his videos just about every day. They vary between instructional stuff (short introductions to openings, analysis/critiques of lower level games) to coverage/analysis of top super GM games and tournaments. He's also trying to become a grandmaster and is analyzing his own tournament games and prep. Not the smartest chess person in the world (he would get absolutely smoked by magnus or any other super GM, for example), but certainly smart enough to be a fantastic teacher. He's the best. I'd start there.
Ben Finegold - Grandmaster, extremely HCIQ. He's a twitch/youtube guy. He used to teach all levels at various chess clubs and a bunch of the beginner lessons are published to youtube. I've found his teaching to be a little impractical, as, for the most part, he teaches stone cold theory, which is rarely played under 1600 or so. Regardless, he's absolutely hilarious. Watching his beginner classes are really funny because all of his jokes go way above the heads of the 6 year old chess savant students.
Eric Rosen - Not super instructional or particularly charismatic, but another International Master who is fun to watch play. He has long youtube videos where he's playing super yolo gambits. Roughly on Gotham's level as far as HCIQ goes. Reminds me of Nate from Ted Lasso before roughly midway through season 2t.
For tactics, probably just grind puzzles on lichess (free/don't have a daily max) or some other chess puzzle website.
