Chess Coaching

On-line Coaching


 Overview  Content  Support  Assessment Tests  Results
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 Overview

Before coaching someone, the first stept should be getting to know that person a little better, and in order to achieve this, the coach will gather as much information as possible from the student: games he has played, why he likes chess, his goals as a chess player, the amount of available time he can spend on chess, the software he uses, etc. The coach will thus get a better idea of his student's true strength and potential. It's basically a matter of developing the right kind of relationship between the coach and the student.
With this essential information, a training plan will be worked out by the coach. We then arrange a weekly on-line meeting.

Lessons are done over the internet using either the Internet Chess Club server or the playchess server. We're normally online between 90 and 120 minutes, with a 5 minutes break after the first hour. During this meeting, we'll normally do a lesson on a topic planned in advance.
When hired under a monthly plan, lessons are complemented with the annotation of 2 games per month + no limit email and forum support. Assimilation of content is tested using state of the art on-line quizzes. (Images available below)
We normally study games and positions and I provide written comment for all moves. (I've tried voice comments in the past but have given up on them because most of my students simply find them rather distracting and seem to concentrate better with text). After the lesson, the student gets a homework file.
During our online session, I normally adapt my coments to my student's level (i.e. I never copy and paste what I say!). Students are supposed to participate actively by asking questions, suggesting moves and ideas, highlighting squares, etc. The whole process is supposed to be interactive. This way I get important feedback from my student and I can better assess his true level, the defects in his play and the progress that he's making.
Now, an interesting thing about my on-line lessons is that students can record everything that is said during our lessons, both by the coach and the student, including the games that we go thru.
As you can see from the images below, a very interesting feature on the playchess server is that you can use graphical elements just like in chessbase (colored arrows and squares). Thus, when I make a move on the board and highlight a square, you see it on your own board at home!
However, there is one limitation at present: although the moves and the graphical elements can be recorded, it seems that the text can not.
Blitzin can record text, but the graphical features are not as good as you can't use different colors.
But, as I mentioned earlier on, this is not really a problem as most of the time the student will get a homework file with both the contents of our on-line lesson and some extra material as well. This file usually contains fully annotated games (including graphical annotations) in chessbase format.
If you're particularly interested in the text conversations between you and me as a learning element, then you should probably go with the ICC server, at least until playchess updates its software.
I pay a lot of attention to explaining things correctly, being very patient and always trying to understand my student. My motto would be something like: if my student is not learning, I'm doing something wrong!
I don't mind repeating things, explaining them from another angle or trying whatever is necessary: my role is to make sure the student learns what I'm trying to teach him, not to show him how well I can play chess.

 Content

Most of the material I use is completely original and has been written by me over the many years of experience as a coach. Content is adapted to the different level of my students. At lower levels, I'm not very fond of working with openings too much (unless a particular student really wants to!) and I normally devote most of my coaching time to tactics, strategy and endgames. If your level is anything under 1900 or 2000 FIDE rating (national ratings are often equivalent), then my advice is that you shouldn't be too concerned about openings right now but rather about learning a little more strategy, middlegames and endings.
We all forget openings, but strategy, once you understand it, will stick in your memory. The same goes for tactics, once you learn the language of tactics, you know it for ever.
What are the subjects we'll be studying? This is just a list of some of the topics we'll be covering:

Tactics


Attack and defence


Pawn structures


Strategy


And well as all the files on endgames. (the number of topics is just too larget to list here)

 Support

Many coaches just do a lesson and forget about you and never of offer this kind of support. When I'm hired as a regular coach, there's no limitation to email and forum support, I'll be working as a coach who's always available to solve your chess related doubts. It's as simple as that.
The advantages of forum support over email is that we can use on-line chessboards to talk about a particular game or position.

One of the things my students benefit most from is game annotation. When I'm hired under a monthly scheme, I provide game corrections and annotations to 2 games played by my students.
The way this works is like this:
1· The student annotates the games he plays (this will consist of an explanation of the ideas he had during the game, variations, how he felt about his position, what questions popped up in his mind and so on.
2· I correct his analysis and provide full comments and explanations. (to get a better idea of how this works, you can dowload some sample annotated games from my webpage, files section) Note that I do not provide game corrections when I'm not hired under a monthly scheme. The reason is that game annotation and corrections is an extremely time-consuming task, as you can probably gather from the sample games in the downloads area of this forum. Home-work is corrected and sent back to the student in a short period of time.

 Assessment Tests

How do we know that you've learned the topics? I provide both supervised on-line testing and also automatic testing (done with flash tests).
The flash based tests are both challenging and interesting. My supervised tests are tougher! (Smile)
I've been doing tests for several years and I create new ones on a monthly basis.

 Results

All my students have improved their chess considerably after spending some time with me. However, becoming a better player takes time, dedication and determination. Results should follow a consistent period of serious work. How long? different variables should be taken into account: age, time availability, dedication, will to improve, experience, over the board practice, etc. but I don't think it's possible to guarantee any big and noticeable improvement in less than 6 months.
I stress again the importance of taking an active role as a student.
As time goes by, the student can take a look at the list of subjects that we have studied. If he has followed my advice and worked seriously, all those topics will be familiar to him and if he hasn't mastered them, he probably end up doing it and then he should be able to use the knowledge in his own games.
I get quite involved in my students' progress, for although I'm a professional coach and this is what I do this for a living, seeing that the work I do is useful to someone (i.e. observing how a student makes real progress) is, I assure you, very gratifying.

 Software requirements


 Screenshots



 Pricing

What are my fees?
My fees are very competitive and you get excellent value for your money. Payments can be made via paypal, credit card or bank transfer.

The easiest way to find all the details about my pricing is to fill out this contact form.
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