"How can I improve my chess?" I hate this question
Because the answer is simple: get a chess coach and follow their advice. Not working? Get a different one and follow their advice. Repeat until you get good results. And before I forget, stop asking online how to improve your chess.
I know some of you are ready to rush to your keyboards about how many FREE resources are out there and how you don't need a chess coach. You know what else is free? Googling or asking LLMs. As soon as I got responses to my original post, I searched and asked. Guess what? NONE OF THEM RECOMMENDED HIRING A CHESS COACH!
I believe this is such an obvious answer that people who understand chess improvement didn't feel like putting it at the top of any list. Or they're from the hustle bro culture and think that if you work hard enough, you'll get whatever you want. You won't. At least 99.99% of us won't. I'm not saying don't work hard. As a matter of fact, I might be a fan of this culture. I know it's BS, but it motivates me 😊
Back to why I single-handedly focused on chess coaching. Honestly, every time someone asked me, and I didn't have the luxury of ignoring the question, I was shy to say HIRE A CHESS COACH! I thought the person would be like, Duh, I know that. So I wouldn't say it and instead mumble something else.
This post is not saying there's no way to improve without hiring a chess coach, especially if you're at the beginning of your chess journey. I like to give this example since people understand it better: if you want to be better at tennis, find a buddy and start hitting the ball to each other, watch YouTube videos, etc. You will get better. But if you want to be really good, you'll need to hire someone to tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. I'm talking about the former.
If you want to be really good at chess, sooner or later you will hit a wall. You can do so much by analyzing your games, solving puzzles, and playing games. This is a fact. I'm not even talking about how having a chess coach while doing all that would have made your progress significantly faster. There is no doubt. The reason is extremely simple: humans are very bad at seeing their own flaws. The good thing is we have chess engines and AI to point out our mistakes, but they haven't reached the level where they can tell you "WHY" and "WHY this keeps happening." Until then, they're not as helpful as you think.
Some of you will say hiring a coach costs a lot of money. Chess is literally one of the cheapest sports to get coached. You can find very good coaches online for a very affordable price. If you can't invest even a small amount in coaching, improvement will always be slower. There's no shortcut around that. If you're reading this post, you have internet, an electronic device, and time. So, give me a break with the price complaints.
Let's say you read this whole post and you're like nah, free stuff is more than enough. Well, the worst-case scenario with a chess coach is that they tell you which free stuff is actually good, so you don't read garbage and follow it.
