Beginners lessons

This isn't that kind of forum.

@PathOfNerd rather than making fun of people can you offer lessons yourself these guys are trying to teach people and in my opinion they are intermediate level

There's no black-and-white comparison for costs between coaches with different experience levels, backgrounds, countries of origin, personality, etc.

There are many IMs out there who charge more than double the price of GMs and are fully booked. A good coach has to be personable and relatable too. An intermediate level coach around 1600 isn't seeking out tournament level students to help them get into an expert category - that's not their intention. It's to break the game down for beginners to help them get to a proficient level in the most efficient amount of time. This has a particular draw for many people otherwise this demand would not exist.

Also, I wouldn't put myself through hours of my own time as a student with an objectively strong player who struggled with me personality wise, or had a hard time breaking concepts down for me in a way I'd understand. Been there, done that - would genuinely consider if it was even worth MY time trying to learn from them for free! The benefit of youtubers is their prospective students get a glance into how they are personality wise and if their style would work for them. That also helps them cut through a lot of noise and time potentially wasted trying to find the right fit!

Cheers to chess improvement! I think there’s a difference between helping beginners out and offering paid services. Once you put a price on your services. It’s natural to have critics when you’re requesting fees but ultimately it’s up to you and those willing to pay for your service so good luck mate!

For those looking for a coach;

1) always ask for a free demonstration lesson or at least a very reduced rate- almost all reasonable coaches offer this.

2) never feel you owe anyone to continue with them. Like any paid service, you’re the priority, not the coach. You don’t feel it, you don’t need to continue. You’ll get a lot more out of someone you click with regardless of experience qualifications ect. Shop around before settling in one!

3) good coaches tailor lessons to you, not regurgitate the same materials to all students.

4) coaches should be teaching you concepts, focusing on your weaknesses, and if any “homework” is given it should be based on reinforcing those ideas and working on correcting your weaknesses unless specific wants from you require otherwise.

5) coaches are ultimately responsible to your needs and wants, even if they want to work on your openings you have final say- you’re the customer! This doesn’t mean ignore their plan to help you improve but if you really want them to teach you endgames instead of openings they ought to do that. Don’t let them override your wants from them as a coach.

I’ll end with most beginners don’t need a coach to improve, they need a dedicated study routine instead of wasting time on YouTube watching someone tell you how awesome a certain opening is or playing speed chess. Real improvement comes from a solid understanding of chess fundamentals, which you can easily find for free or cheaply, and then learning how to think through positions correctly using a solid thought process with practice and reviewing errors. I can run anyone through that for free. Have fun with chess, it’s a great game. :)

The thing is blitz and bullet do not help you improve in chess, it can make your faster but personally, I would only care about my rapid rating because I play more accurate chess and so does my opponent. this makes rapid a lot harder to play than blitz and bullet. blitz and bullet is not the way to improve, rapid is the way to train your instincts, and calculation skills, and then once you get enough experience you can get faster ideas which will make you a faster player.

Everyone is different. I became stronger by almost exclusively playing blitz. I still spend hours studying chess, learning concepts, endgames, middlegames and openings, and then I apply what I know in blitz and refine in post-game analysis.

This has exposed me to probably 5x as many games and therefor 5x as many patterns as I'd see playing longer rapid games over the same time span.
This translates to overall improvement in rapid anyway, as I can still apply a lot of the concepts I studied like endgames, strategy and opening work. The only downside of exclusively playing blitz is it will dull down your deep calculation experience, however this can still be practiced during puzzles and other calculation exercises.

In any case, what I think PathofNerd meant is that on chess.com, generally your blitz rating is more of an indicator of your strength as it seems to run more closely with OTB ratings vs chess.com rapid ratings, which tend to be a few hundred rating points higher - at least at the lower levels. At 2000, less and less people play rapid so the pool isnt as inflated of a number.

Soo much to learn :)

Fair enough, I don't play an awful lot of rapid so not sure how the pool is. But I did try to search for a 15+10 game yesterday and it searched for maybe 45 seconds before pairing me with an 1800... I guess many 2100-2200s don't search 15+10 - or perhaps it was the time of night! I believe the 10+0 pool is much larger.

In blitz, I can find a game in literally 2 seconds.