Cut like a pro

As a professional, one big thing....

Pinch the blade, not the handle. Seriously.

 Cut like a pro

As someone with a good amount of kitchen experience, an 8" chef's knife is pretty much all you need (bread and paring knives are the other 2).

The biggest thing is that you can't cut yourself if your fingers are not by the blade. Curling your fingers back is the most important thing about knife safely.

If anyone cares, my knife is this Shun 8" Western Chef's Knife.[1] It's an awesome knife to buy if you're willing to maintain it.

I'd say the first thing to buy is a sharpening stone. Then buy cheap knives, only caring about shape (more French? more German? Santoku?) as well as (this is important) that it doesn't have a bevel because that sucks when slicing (like this is bad[1]  , like this is good[2]  ). And yes really get the big-ass ones.

Five to ten bucks each. They're going to last you a long time, if you're a home chef maybe even for life if you're lucky. Knife steel has come a long way and as you have a stone, you don't have any excuse for the knife to ever be blunt.

Buy something fancy once you know what you actually want, when you already know how to handle a knife.

Oh, and when it comes to cutting boards: Wood, bamboo if you want. Glass kills your knives, plastic is unhygienic outside of industrial settings. Just wash it, let dry vertically. You can play it fast and loose when cutting bread, when cutting meat washing ASAP is mandatory. Wood is naturally antibacterial.