Feedback from my students

As the title says, this is just a topic to collect feedback from my students.

Hi Gabor,

Having had lessons from Gabor since the lockdown started it would say that I can highly recommend Gabor as a Chess coach. The lessons are well structured and tailored to the Students needs, above all they are enjoyable and fixed at the right level to give a good challenge to the student. We've worked mostly on Positional Play, Endgames, Tactics and Calculation training and my knowledge in these areas has improved quite considerably since we started. 

As with all good lessons there is homework and this provides the student with a lot of good PGN examples of games and exercises to work on. 

I play mostly Rapid on Lichess and my Rating has improved by around 400 points since we started. From about 1500 - 1900. 

So if you are looking to improve you game, some lessons from Gabor would be a great place to start.

Dave Racz

Gabor knows what he is doing. He knows what you need and finds ways to give it to you and mixes it up before things get stale. He applies many different approaches to get the point across. I highly recommend him if you manage to get a slot on his schedule that is!

Gabor has the right mix of chess ability and humility to be a great coach potential for players up to Master level, in my view. 

Danny

I have had the good fortune to be taught by Gábor over the last two years, and I cannot recommend him enough:

Teaching

Gábor achieves the perfect balance between allowing you to work through problems independently whilst knowing when to interject with pointers should you lose your way. This ensures that you solve problems and evaluate positions for yourself but that your lesson time is utilised effectively.

Gábor answers questions clearly and articulates new concepts well. He helped me to understand the fundamentals of positional play, which has allowed me to move away from relying on tactical blows to win games. He also instils in his students the importance of endgames, helping you to win won games, draw lost games and ask difficult questions of your opponent throughout.

Lessons

If you’re not sure where to start with improving your game, Gábor will take the lead and implement a plan to identify and address your weaknesses. However, Gábor is flexible with his syllabus and will happily prepare a lesson to explore any topic or subject you bring to him.

Furthermore, Gábor mixes up his modes of teaching to keep things fresh and interesting: we have played training games, tackled endgame studies, analysed openings, played through and discussed master games, worked through books and analysed my OTB and online games. In short, his lessons are never dull.

Logistics

I have never had any issues with organising or attending lessons. Gábor is very understanding when life gets in the way and you need to pause your lessons.

Results

To get the most from lessons, you need to get on with your teacher. Gábor is an interesting and fun guy – you will enjoy your lessons, have a laugh and look forward to the next one.

I have improved my lichess blitz rating to ≥2000. More importantly, I have played my first OTB games and tournaments in years and joined a local club; I have grown stronger at the game and had a lot of fun along the way – what more could you want!

I have had lessons with Gabor for over 2 years. He is very patient and helpful. He is adept at spotting your main areas of weakness and implementing improvement. He is very friendly and easy to get on with. I thoroughly recommend him.

Both my daughters (ages 11 and 7) have been learning chess from Gabor over the last several years.  Gabor's patient, calm, structured and cheerful style of teaching has helped the girls enjoy their chess and look forward to learning more. I see a slow but steady improvement in their ratings and confidence as well. I rely on Gabor to figure out the best teaching styles and he does keep the classes engaging - mixing thematic puzzles, with studies of classic games, with training games, opening/end-game analysis and analyses of the student's recorded online games. He spots the student's weaknesses and helps them steadily overcome these. The timezone differences between our location and Gabor's have not led to any major issues with scheduling because Gabor is accommodating in working with us and in case life and travel plans interrupt a regularly scheduled slot. He is clear and prompt with his correspondence. I have recommended Gabor to a bunch of my friends and will gladly continue to do so. 

Our son has been being coached by Gabor for a while now and we have been very impressed. Gabor is always very accommodating when lessons need moved so it's very rare we have to cancel. Neither my wife nor I can play chess so it is difficult to comment much about the methods and tactics employed during the teaching but our son always looks forward to his lessons. He particularly enjoys going through his games from the week before and learning from his mistakes as well as spending time working on openings, end games and other tactics. Would highly recommend to anyone looking for an online coach.

Coach Gábor Horvath is the epitome of patience. My 10 year-old started out two years back at ~500 ELO and is now around 1850. Gábor has tailored his lessons at every stage to challenge the improving player so the goal is outside the grasp but within the reach, while providing guidance on how to progress.

The weekly lessons come with thematic puzzle sets, and at intervals, with opening trainers.

Gábor answers every question, no matter how trivial, with a good-humored explanation. He brings structure to the curriculum while remaining flexible by  encouraging the student to try out openings, defenses, and ideas. He is quite willing to  try out every line the student throws and demonstrate its strengths and flaws on the board.

During the game reviews is when you see the depth of knowledge and experience he brings when he compares and contrasts the engine's analysis (for example, highlighting how the engine values centi-pawn losses vs. how a human approaches the situation). His insights into specific weaknesses in the student's play and their solutions has helped my son win tournaments.

All of this while dealing with literal children with seemingly infinite amounts of patience. If you are lucky to get coaching time from this CM you should jump at the opportunity. A+, would train again.

It was great having Gabor coach me. He has a structured lesson plan which increased my chess.com ELO by more than 100 in a short time, but he was also willing to offer coaching based on how I wanted to learn. I asked for games to study in my favourite openings and he provided it, I asked to review my games and we did that and him and I played against each other as well. All very helpful. Thanks Gabor!

Hi Corey, thanks for your feedback. It was fun working with you. 

Gabor is really patient and lets me think through a position until I find the answer or decide that I need help to understand it. This has been very helpful. He always challenges me with new variations, calculation excercises and master games. When life comes in the way and I had to make changes to the scedule, it was never any problem. Thank you for all your guidance! Recommended coach!

Hi Marcel, thanks for your feedback.