Nova Daily - 4 July 2025: Coaching

Hi!

Happy Independence Day!

For today I thought to keep it a bit calm. So far I've written and revised my feedback to nine of the 24 June submissions, which already totals about 7000 words. Truth be told, I've quite begun to question my sanity because of this. But I love writing, and I love doing things thoroughly.

In a way, giving people feedback is a bit like coaching.

“I believe in tough love, which is why I make my players watch footage of their missed layups on repeat.”

https://questforquotes.com/bad-coach-quotes/

Coaching

As a coach, you will need to have some skill in the discipline, but it requires rather much more than just being skilled. You're dealing with another human being, with their own fears, ambitions, quirks, and psychological make-up. So you have to find out what your student is like, and what they respond to. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, and the worst thing that you can have is a coach whose methods don't resonate with you.

I've once been approached by a person who said that he could make me reach a certain rating threshold in six months. I asked him a lot of questions like "Do you think I have what it takes?" and "Would you say that it's something worth investing my time in?" He went on and on, but there's one critical thing that he didn't do. He never asked me a question.

Had he asked me anything at all, he'd have known that for me, the road to his target threshold would be down the rating ladder. When I ultimately told him, he took it well. But next time I hope for him that he'll remember to ask questions first.

When I think back on the chess coaches that I've had throughout my life, I can see what worked and what didn't. For me, contact with a coach is always something personal. I have to trust my coach and feel comfortable with them so that I can open up emotionally and not feel ashamed of the bad games that I sometimes play. If I lose in a bad way, I'm already feeling in the dumps because of it, and I don't need anyone else to scold me even more. And if my coach calls me a dumbass, I have to feel that it's tongue-in-cheek and done from a basis of respect.

My dearest coach, who died in 2022, was a veterinarian. At some point he showed me a bunch of positions to solve, and I was of course talking without thinking. "I'm going to surgically remove those vocal cords of yours if you keep going on like this," he once said. That made an impression, especially because I understood him so well. I deeply cherish all those horrible things that he said to me with that glint in his eyes that told me everything. The mental resilience that I learned by his "Didn't they have anything better to send us for a saviour than YOU?!" really helped me become who I am today.

Guess what else my coach always loved to do...

The game

Today's chess was absolutely insane. First of all, I had only just shared in my feedback to one of my fellow bloggers that I once won against a 2901 rated bullet player, even that only showed up as 2887 because the rating mutation is counted for the highest victory. And exactly today I broke that personal best by beating a GM with a higher rating! I'm absolutely shocked that that happened!

Also, I made everyone's favourite streamer Witty_Alien very happy by losing against him in his own gambit, which was also a first. Sadly he did abort the two games in which I played 1.c4 (my guess is that he didn't expect to be collect brilliancies quick enough against 1.c4), but you can't have it all. Overall I still have to thank him for all the points that he's relayed to me, both directly and through his fans, and I can warmly congratulate him with his win over me today.

As for the rapid game: I loved every bit of it. I obtained a small advantage with black that just kept growing. At some point my opponent lost the plot, and I completely took over the position. Towards the end, my opponent showed an enormous amount of sportsmanship by allowing me to perform the checkmate that haunts some people's dreams: bishop and knight.

I'm in two minds as to whether I want to break this whole checkmate procedure down in blog form, so I'll let you decide.