The Story of a Man Who Found His Calling: IM Andras Toth

Not many people are lucky enough to find a job that fulfills their sense of purpose — a job that doesn't really feel like work. The path to these is rarely direct. As was the case for Andras Toth, one of our most successful authors, whose journey we want to focus on here. The short version of his story is captured in a video recently produced by our team:    

Finding a Career Path

When Andras Toth was at a point where a professional chess career seemed within reach, he decided it was not what he wanted — even though he had proven an exceptional talent in chess. He was a two-time junior champion of Hungary and trained under the renowned IM László Hazai. Hazai was an important influence for him, not only in chess, but also in one of his other interests: literature.

Instead of pursuing a professional chess career, Andras decided to study literature and linguistics. He finished his university degree and took a job as a journalist. Even though he was well-prepared for a job in this field, he didn’t feel like that’s where he was supposed to be and stay.

Despite focusing on his education and career outside of chess, Andras continued competing in tournaments and honing his skills. Remarkably, he earned his IM title while still studying. He also discovered a passion for teaching chess, which he pursued regularly alongside his other commitments.

When the circumstances presented themselves, Andras made the bold decision to abandon the path he was on at the time for a chess coaching job. This meant moving to a distant continent, with his new job being in Australia! It was important enough for him to take this step, and it seems to have been the right decision — Andras has called Australia home ever since.

Teaching chess in person brought Andras closer to finding a career that felt right for him. It was one of his students who took him another step forward by recommending Chessable. It offered him the opportunity to transform his chess and teaching knowledge into a well-structured online course. He had already been sharing lessons through his YouTube channel and seeing solid success online, but Chessable opened up a new market with even greater possibilities. Andras loved the idea and decided to give it a try.

His Beginnings at Chessable

In 2020, Andras started working on his first Chessable course, Chess Principles Reloaded − Center. He actually wrote most of this course on the bus, while commuting!

The course was a great success, with numerous 5-star reviews praising his work. It became clear that Andras had a talent for what he was doing. After this first success, Andras continued his work and made a trilogy out of his “Chess Principles Reloaded” idea. Soon after, a collaboration with none other than Judit Polgar followed, a fellow Hungarian, resulting in a three-part series covering several aspects of the game. The courses with Judit were also published as books afterwards.

Finding His Calling

In 2021, just one year after the publication of his debut course, Andras became Author of the Year! Within a few years, he published several courses on a wide range of topics. In early 2022, he published his first opening repertoire on Chessable, The Club Player's 1.e4 Repertoire. There would be more repertoires and other courses to follow.
All of his courses got great reviews, and Andras became not only one of our most productive authors, but also one of our most respected and popular authors. 

Andras has found a path that combines his passion, talent, and a meaningful contribution to others. As he puts it, this is the work he has always wanted to do. Through his teaching, he helps thousands of people not only improve their chess but also develop a deeper appreciation for the game.

Reviews of his courses highlight several aspects that students particularly appreciate in his teaching:

• He presents chess in a way that makes learning enjoyable and motivating.
• In his explanations, he answers common questions and makes complex ideas easy to understand and accessible to a wide range of levels.
• The material he presents is well-chosen (model games, puzzles, etc.), with a focus on chess principles, key concepts and general ideas over memorization.

By the way, Andras’ instructive and entertaining style isn’t appealing to only amateurs - even top players like Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri have praised it on their streams!

An Afternoon with Andras Toth at the Chessable Headquarters 

Andras’s passion for the game is authentic. Chessable staff who work in our office in Barcelona can attest to that. When Andras came all the way from Australia to visit and record a course in our in-house studio, he didn’t only work on his course: while he was there. He also didn’t miss a chance to help some of our staff members, the active chess players among them, analyze their games and commentate on matches played in the office, filling the room with his trademark humor and contagious energy.

Some of our staff even got the chance to spend an afternoon with Andras, hiking up to Barcelona’s city mountain Tibidabo, where he told them about his path to becoming a chess author. We captured some moments from this afternoon and turned his story into a short video — the one you saw in the introduction of this article.
We’re happy to have Andras on board. His contributions to the community and to chess education in general are invaluable. This week, we want to bring special attention to Andras’s courses with a sale that includes all of them! You can get up to 50% off. 

Andras Toth’s Most Successful Courses

Below you’ll find a selection of his most popular courses, with a short description for each. You can see all of his work on his author profile if you scroll down.

Chess Principles Reloaded Trilogy:

1) Center

In his debut course, Andras teaches you the power of central control through 16 high-level games and 126 training positions. With almost 5 hours of video instruction, this course helps you use the center to get stronger, more dynamic play and better results.

2) Development

The second piece of Andras’s trilogy teaches how to dominate games through superior piece activity. In nearly 7 hours of video instruction, he analyzes 24 games, revealing key principles, common development mistakes, and powerful attacking strategies. The course includes 201 training exercises.

3) King Safety

The third installment of Toth's best-selling series takes the concept of king safety, breaks it down into beginner-friendly thinking tools and fine-tunes your sense of danger and killer instincts.

The Club Player's 1.e4 Repertoire

This course teaches a complete 1.e4-repertoire without overwhelming theory, focusing on key ideas instead of endless memorization. It covers all major defenses, helps avoid traps, punishes weak openings, and connects opening to middlegame strategy. Ideal for club player level and above.

The Club Player's 1.d4 Repertoire

Andras wrote another repertoire for club players who prefer to open the game with 1.d4. Same as in his e4-repertoire, he cuts down on memorization and focuses on ideas instead. The style of this course leans towards attacking chess, while maintaining a focus on chess fundamentals. This repertoire can also be played up to the master level.

Andras Toth has published almost 20 courses on our site! You should definitely check out the rest of them. No matter which aspect of the game you want to improve, Andras can probably help you with it.

And don’t forget: the discount on his courses will only last for a few days.