
Coach’s Corner: Arjun Kalyan
GM Arjun Kalyan’s first serious experience with coaching could not have been more testing. It was at the 2022 Chess Olympiad in his hometown of Chennai. As one of the assistant coaches for the Indian 'B' team in the open section, he prepared openings for then-rising stars Praggnanandhaa R., Gukesh Dommaraju and Nihal Sarin.
The team clinched the bronze medal, outranking the A-team by a hair in the final standings.
Kalyan has continued to play a role in Team India’s participation at the highest level. He was a second for Pragg before and during the Chess Candidates 2024. He was also a coach for India’s Women's team in the Chess Olympiad 2024 where Team India won double gold medals.
In early 2023, Kalyan switched from playing to coaching full time. Some of his most famous students are ChessKid star Aaron Reeve Mendes from Canada and Sohum Lohia from England. Both youngsters have obtained International Master titles in 2025.

In working with up and coming players, Kalyan has verified the importance of persistence and grit. He does not believe in quick solutions and shortcuts when it comes to chess improvement and instead emphasizes that it is a long journey where it is best to focus on the process and not the results.
“The usual trajectory of a chess player is that they remain stagnant at a certain level for a bit. When they are putting in proper work and not losing their belief, they tend to have a big jump and the process repeats. I have seen this with several of my students and myself,” Kalyan says.
“Over the last two years, I have been travelling extensively with Sohum Lohia to tournaments. Like everyone, he is affected by his results, but he always keeps putting in the hard yards. For a good period (2 years) he was stuck at around 2100-2200 level. Suddenly, there was a big jump to 2400 and 2 IM norms,” he adds.
The 23-year-old grandmaster shared with us his insights and advice for chess improvement in this interview:
What is your chess coaching philosophy?
I don't believe that there is one approach which works with all students, but I try to bring some structure to the training process. Most of my students are looking to seriously improve their chess, irrespective of age. It does not mean that they have super high ambitions, but they should be ready to put in the work. The sessions are only effective when you continue to work on chess at home.
Typically, in the first sessions, I assess the thinking process of the student. There are some general guidelines which we can follow to make it easier and more effective. For example, identifying tactical motifs, candidate moves, elimination of possibilities, understanding opponent's ideas and so on. Understanding these general concepts helps us intuitively find good moves faster. It helps identify inaccuracies in our opponent's play when they break these general principles.
When it comes to serious chess training, it should closely resemble a tournament game. We should feel responsible for every decision we make. I generally ask my students to make a clear decision before we begin discussing the position. It is not only important to find the key ideas but to execute them precisely. This approach also helps us manage our time better as we train ourselves to make decisions in a certain time.

Suppose a player has only 3 hours a week for chess training. How should they spend their time?
It really varies from person to person and their specific strengths and weaknesses. I think doing tactics is always important to develop tactical vision. It makes sense to build up a good base in the opening in case it does not exist. Other than building the foundation, I do not think it makes sense to spend a lot of time on the opening. Similarly, the basic rules of endgames and important theoretical positions have to be studied. Playing games and analysing those games afterwards is a good way to assess yourself.
What is the biggest factor for improvement for players under 1200 (Chess.com)? Under 2000?
For Under 1200, it is usually tactics. I recommend training tactics regularly, and you should be able to recognise patterns quickly.
For Under 2000, there are a few areas, but one prominent one is to train ourselves to always look out for our opponent's ideas. Creating a good structure in the thinking process also helps a lot.
What is your preferred way to improve at openings? What's the approach to chess openings that you try to teach your students?
The main point is to definitely understand the ideas in the opening. We need to know our plans and the general ideas in the positions. Nowadays, there is a lot of high-quality material available on the internet. Earlier, it was a longer process to go through good games and to try and understand ideas. A lot of the Chessable courses have very good explanations, and Chessable helps drill the ideas with spaced repetition. Playing blitz games in the openings and analysing them after is a good method to understand them better.
The value of surprising your opponent has increased exponentially. So, if you are already a strong player, it makes a lot of sense to bring variety to your repertoire. Especially as White, there are several small lines which you can add within a particular opening. I have only played 1.e4 throughout my repertoire, but there are so many options against each of Black's moves.

What is your preferred way to improve at the endgame?
There are some very good books such as Silman's Complete Endgame Course and 100 Endgames You Must Know, for basic theoretical endgames. I learnt a lot from Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual but it is for pretty advanced players. It really helps to have a coach explain the key concepts and important ideas. For instance, zugzwang is a very frequent concept in many endgames. Then there are more general principles like keeping the rook active and so on.
Is there anything else you would like to share with ambitious chess improvers?
Make sure that you keep your passion and love for chess alive. Focus on quality chess training rather than quantity. Try to bring discipline to your training process and also your thinking. Playing games online is important but this has to be followed by analysis. You can play a set of 5-10 games but then analyse all of them after.
Courses by GM Arjun Kalyan
To date, GM Kalyan has published three opening courses at Chessable.
- Kalyan’s Lethal Italian
- Lifetime Repertoires: Arjun’s Semi-Slav, freshly updated with a new chapter to test your intuition.
- Play 1.e4 with Purpose, on introductory sale until August 5, 2025.
Check out his Chessable author page!