Coaching and Q&A

Hi! Feel free to ask questions about chess improvement in this thread.

You can also ask live in a free trial lesson. Enjoy!

In your opinion is it better to study only a few openings,  let's say something like The Stonewall and Colle for white and Scandinavian and Pirc for black. So 4 total, or is it better to dabble in many?

Specializing has its benefits and some strong players like GM Naroditsky have recommended this approach. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with studying lots of openings as long as you focus on understanding the typical ideas. Just remember that tactics are the most important for club players and feel free to enjoy whatever interests you!

I've really enjoyed the Chess Classics series and especially like Aagaard and Kasparov. My all-time favorite chess book is Aagaard's Thinking Inside The Box. Any other questions?

Is that a shiba inu dog mask? I wanna own that 

I think so! Timur took the mask during our California trip. Maybe I'll win it back later!

Thanks! You deserve recognition because you have been working hard. Keep it up!

Do lots of tactics and have fun! Studying with friends and training partners also helps.

I do have a legit question though, how do you get better at positional play? I’m talking about identifying weak squares, noticing when you’re overextending, stuff like that. For example, I’ve been messing around with the KID, and the d4 pawn often ends up becoming a target for black, even though it’s connected with both the e and c pawns, and it’s only moved once. Any good books you recommend or anything?

I like Aagaard's idea of looking for weaknesses, the worst placed pieces, and your opponent's ideas. All positional concepts can fit into the above three questions. Books and studying master games help a lot! When you already studied enough concepts to recognize them in hindsight, you get a lot out of game analysis. Youth tends to absorb ideas a lot more intuitively and older adults tend to need more accurate explanations.

Studying the classics tends to be helpful, especially for youth. Grooten and Silman are good for adult club players while Aagaard and Dvoretsky are great for 1800+.

Good example! c4 and e4 focus on the light-squares and pawns can't move backward so White is slightly weaker on dark. Yaacov's color theory is useful for further exploration.

I am a casual chess player, but i want to get a FIDE rating... so at what ELO ratings i should start playing FIDE tournaments?

I'd recommend at least 1200 on chess.com. Most people start FIDE much higher than 1200 because FIDE events are rare in the USA, though maybe FIDE events are common for India!

Very relevant question about chess improvement: what is the total number of hotel rooms, lifetime, that you have tried to enter using a wrong room key?

what was the most important training tool, study habits, etc, that helped you to go from 1800 to 2000?

How do I become a GM in less than 3 weeks? My ELO is around 1200 and I'm on a deadline. I need to get it done before the end of April and am willing to devote 30 minutes a day. Thank you!

13/13 coach, do recommend. I expect to become a GM in 3-4 weeks using these methods.

Naroditsky also recommended that Grooten book recently. A lot of people have recommended Silman's Reassess Your Chess and others. I am currently reading through The Amateur's Mind.

If you have a weekly training schedule for chess improvement (as I assume most in this thread probably do), what percentage of your time do you apportion to the following methods:

• Strategy Courses (e.g. on Chessable)
• Tactics Courses (e.g. on Chessable)
• Endgame Courses (e.g. on Chessable)
• Opening Courses (e.g. on Chessable)
• Primer (e.g. Yusapov series)/other books about chess improvment studied on actual board
• Game collection book studied on actual board

I own a course/book from every bullet above, but I feel like I agonize every week on the best way to  study all the material at my fingertips. Currently, I've opted for a constantly rotating two-week system: one week on chessable openings, one week on chessable tactics/endgames/strategy; during both weeks, I try to fill in room for books where I can find the leftover motivation.