Hi, my name is Christopher Cook. I am a 31 year old adult chess improver living in San Diego, CA. A fun fact about me is I have a Ph.D. in organic chemistry. I am currently accepting students! I am offering a free 15 minute consultation session over zoom for prospective students, please message or email me to setup a time.

My Coaching Philosophy:

My primary market is adult improvers in the 800-1500 rating range. I am willing to take players of all ages also.
From my experiences with my coach, I would ask for you to send me some games before our lessons so that I can look for strengths and weaknesses. More specifically, I will look for reasons you consistently lose games while also emphasize your strengths so that we know what we need to work on the most together.
During the lesson, I emphasize game analysis and calculation. I am a firm believer that the best way to improve is by learning from the games you play whether it's a win, draw, or loss. Also, by going over your games, we can discuss the opening, middlegame concepts, and endgames. Calculation can be practiced at moments during the game where tactics come about or forcing moves lead to a better position.
After the lesson, I will send students either exercises focusing on a specific topic or give the student a reference that will help them improve their weaknesses. I believe in giving my students exercises from real games.

As someone who started playing chess as an adult, I believe that I can be relatable to students. I know that you have other things going on in your life, so I want to share with you straightforward methods that helped me improve as an adult.

Current Rates:

$100 for five hours booked in advance

$200 for ten hours booked in advance

For my personal profile, my name is Christopher Cook. A few bullet point facts about me:

Born in North Carolina, currently living in California.
I am 32 years old, and graduated with a Bachelors in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Baylor University.
My current USCF is 1814.
I currently work at a pharmaceutical company. I enjoy teaching and communicating with people. I have started teaching chess at my work, and I understand that as a non-chess professionals we have limited time on our hands. No matter if you have 1 hour or 10 hours per day to put into chess, I believe I can help you improve.
Feel free to contact me for lessons and rates... also look above for my coaching philosophy.

A couple of other notes, I will only answer serious coaching inquires. Please provide a little bit of detail for me to reply. For example, your name, how you got started in chess, what you are looking to get out of chess, or your goals. I look forward to chatting with you and helping you improve your chess.

chrisbarcacook