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Chess coach advice for kid
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We are looking for opinions on how to find a good chess coach for our 7 year old kid.
Here is the background information (I´m choosing to stay anonymous):
- Neither myself nor my spouse play chess at all.
- Our child has only been playing chess for about 4-5 months and after a few fairly serious tournaments (Kid did way better than anyone expected) was invited to play at the U8 Nationals (we live in a european country). We turned down the invitation because we decided that our kid was too young (they were only 6 at the time).
- Subsequently we received a proposal to train with one of the top coaches (verified) in the country (I can´t name names). The proposal included attending Europeans and World level next year. We declined because we just couldn´t afford THAT amount of money.
- Kid was tested by a licenced psychologist (at school it is standard here for bright kids to be tested by school psychologist) using a standard WISC-IV test and reached the ceiling (99.9%) of the test in almost all categories. When not at the exact ceiling of the two other categories it was 98% and 99% . For any IQ experts here, I´m taking these numbers directly from the psychologists report. This kid is more intelligent than we imagined, which is why I´m even seriously looking at options for training.
- Currently we train with a local coach who is, in my opinion, amazing - he cares a lot about his students. However, we are warned by unsaid top coach here that this guy won´t be able to bring Kid up to the top level.
- Also I have been warned that the next three years are critical - is the window really that small?
- Kid LOVES chess, and will happily train several hours a day.
We definitely have no insight or idea how to move forward, if it´s even necessary to make any changes.
We don´t want to waste Kid´s talent, but we also don´t want to pay astronomical amounts of money.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.