Well, one thing I liked about him was the way he was really passionate about coaching. He looked at my games from my last tournament which I sent him, and ALSO looked my chess.com games on the explorer. He could make perfect judgement about me from my games. Now, let's move on see at my revision of my lesson.

To start with, he first told me he'd looked at my games and decided that I'm a more tactical and dynamic player. AGREED. He also noted that I had an unbeaten score, 4.5/5 with White while I scored just 2/5 with black, although one win was against a 2100+. Again, AGREED. I felt that he got to know me pretty well. He then asked me which game I wanted to see. I told him I'd like to see whichever he felt was best, and he said we should probably look at my KID games. Again, he just sounds like a great coach who knows what he's doing.

So, we looked at the following two games:

Some of the notes are not related to the game, 'twas 'bout other things we talked 'bout

After each game, he'd ask me, "So Umesh, what did you learn from this game?" - I would just keep telling things - I'd never analysed and understood games so easily and clearly like I did now. I just learnt a LOT from the games after going through them with him.

After we went through both of the games, he then talked more about my playing style, and gave me some advice. The first was about positional play.

If you're stuck in a position, not sure what to do (understand the position better) - three positional questions

1) What is the opponent's idea (threat)?
2) Where are the weaknesses?
3) What is the worst-placed piece?

(What are the pawn breaks? - Weekly Student Video - pawn structures)

Aagaard's book - Positional Play

No immediate or major tactics

The next thing he did was determine what my main strength and weakness is. He figured out that my main strength is openings, and he asked me what my main challenge in chess was. I said, of course "The Endgame!".

One of your main strengths is your opening knowledge. Played a lot of different openings - specialise

Chess skill - main challenge? - endgame

What players to study? Studying the players who match your style (Kasparov, Fischer) - studying the players who don't match your style (very different approach) - pick up the skills that these other players have

Rubinstein, Capablanca - how they handle the endgame, strategic middlegame positions

Endgame theory - practical endgame skill - playing out different positions vs. computer or human. Studying games by great endgame players.

I then told him about my tournament from October 1. He gave the following advice

Tournament - 1st October - 90+30 classical time control, open swiss.

Training Plan - analyse your games (method), solving tactics puzzles each day (Chess.com Puzzles - unrated, 'drill' each theme one at a theme - drilling maths problems).

Study some endgames and positional/strategic play. Rubinstein/Capablanca games (Exercise)

Calculation puzzles - go through this Study, look for positions with the (#) symbol (Diagram) - hide the notation pane, when you see the symbol, then solve it

Well, so, that was just it, a brief revision

Kshetr ikyavan

Super Admins