I am pathetic when it comes to chess

Now granted, I hope to get better using a little chess game on Windows 8 where you can play the computer. But, gee. I'm not great at sudoku, either, but I can at least do the easy ones without notes. I can see I need to do some brain exercising. :) I am, however, very good at crosswords, word finds, Scrabble, Mahjong (the type on the computer that involves matching; I've never played real Mahjong), Hearts, Rook, Spades, Gin, and Spider Solitaire. I'm a little iffy on Freecell, although YKWIA is a whiz at that. I was also taught a version of solitaire as a kid that was sadistic, in which you couldn't move anything at all once you placed it and you only got three times through the pile. I didn't realise until computers came around that the rules were different. Which is sad, as we actually had a copy of Hoyle's Games (I still have it) in the house. You would think after winning something like three games in five years I would have sat down and read it rather than accept something at face value.