I had my first lesson with Kestony this evening. The short version...Fantastic!
The slightly longer version:
Kestony immediately put me at ease and explained what we were going aim for, why and how we were going to accomplish it. He was really patient and encouraging the whole lesson and also organised and methodical. His explanations were clear and well articulated and he has a good sense of humour.
As a full time teacher of over 30 years myself (woodwind instruments in schools) I can vouch for the fact that playing and teaching are two very different skill sets. Many great players, be it chess or music, don’t do the lesson prep and put the time into the student, to be good effective teachers. It was a pleasant surprise to find that Kestony was organised, prepared, methodical and actually had an interest in getting me from the lowly 950 rating I’m currently at to something more respectable. He has a clearly worked out plan for my progress rather than so many coaches that just do a few puzzles, play a game or two and times up.
I’ll post further updates as we continue but after my first lesson, the impression I’m left with is that Kestony is the real deal. A player who CAN teach, WANTS to teach and puts in the necessary time and effort to do it as it should be done.
My journey: A beginner gets Chess coaching.
I had another lesson with Kestony this week. I can only do lessons once every two weeks at the moment which isn’t as often as either I or Kestony would like but he doesn’t make me feel like a less important student for all that.
Since our last lesson, I’d played in one of the <1200 15/10 Rapid Swiss Tournaments that are hosted here on Chess.com
I scored a Bronze with a 3/5 result and gained 27 or so rating points but I think I got quite lucky. The games were full of blunders by both sides which is normal at this level.
Kestony had suggested I try to make notes on my thinking/ideas/ calculations whilst I played and then annotate and analyse my games to help both him and myself get an insight into the WHY behind my move choices.
I did that and we went over games in the lesson which was enormously helpful. Kestony was very much into the WHY of each move (both mine and my opponent’s) rather than just the opening book says so.
It was immediately obvious that my biggest weakness was tactical blunders and miscalculations. In Kestony’s words (I’m paraphrasing)...
“You’re like a 1000 player who has an understanding of opening and strategy of 1200 but a tactics level of 800.”
So we worked on some tactics puzzles together where Kestony taught me how to change the wayI approach solving tactical problems. It was a real “Ah Ha!” moment for me.
Again, Kestony was very patient during what must have been an incredibly boring lesson for someone of his level as he waited while I spotted a mate in 2 etc but he never made me feel bad about it and instead encouraged and prodded me into changing what I was looking at and looking for until I started to get the hang of it.
Finally we set some realistic and achievable goals for the next 6 months or so which I’m determined to achieve.
Another fantastic lesson and I look forward to our next one. 👍💯
Hi guys,
Updating my lesson experience with Kestony. Today we focused on just a few topics. We discussed my progress with improving my tactics solving and how I was going with Kestony's suggestions for thinking through and practicing tactics puzzles. I've noticed an increase in my tactics rating (I use CT-Art and Chess Tempo mainly), since adopting the more structured approach to paracticing and solving tactics puzzles that Kestony outlined for me. So that's coming along well. I still miss some very basic tactics in blitz games but I'm also seeing more tactics which is nice. We then worked on King and Pawn endgames. Kestony outlined a few basic principles and demonstrated them for me. He then set me various King and Pawn endgame problems and prodded me with questions and I had to calculate out loud as I tried to solve them. The idea was that these "more simple" endgame studies will help develop my calculation and visualisation muscles as well as being just straight out useful in their own right. I really enjoyed them. Kestony has a knack for making them challenging but interesting. After I'd learned a principle and solved a few positions utilising that principle, Kestony would show me a game where one player purposefully aimed for and achieved that known winning endgame. It made the study of the more basic, stripped down positions a lot more relevant and real to me.
After working on endgames and tactics, we came up with a structured daily practice plan built around tactics puzzles, game analysis, endgame studies and fewer games but longer time controls. Kestony also sent me annotated games to work through each day and and an end game study program to work through.
Finally, he played a couple of Rapid games and shared his thoughts out loud as I watched the game. What made it even more enlightening for me, was that his commentary was adjusted to my level of understanding. Kestony framed his thoughts/commentary around the ideas we've been working on so that I could see how they all come together in the game.
It was another hugely enjoyable and rewarding lesson and I'm really enjoying all the homework. Looking forward to the next lesson.
KESTONY lesson update #4
Hi guys,
I had another lesson with Kestony this week. Things have been pretty chaotic with the whole Covid-19 thing but after a slight delay, we’re back on track.
Since our last lesson, (3 weeks due to illness), I have been working on Tactics for about 1 hour a day, mixing it up between Chess Tempo and Ct-Art 4.0 and working my way through a series of King and Pawn endgame studies that Kestony prepared for me. When I can, I also set up a real board and play through the games from David Bronstein’s Zurich International 1953 collection.
As far as playing goes, I had played only about 6 Rapid games in the 15/10 time control and as many 3 minute Blitz games wherever and whenever I could. I much prefer the 15/10 time control as I’m just not experienced enough to see and think quickly enough for 3 minute Blitz games. I persist with them however purely to try to drill my openings. Since I changed to the London System as white and the Caro-Kann and Queen’s Gambit Declined as Black at Kestony’s suggestion, (I was playing the Ruy Lopez and the French and had no idea against 1. d4), I find playing the 3 minute Blitz games give me a lot more practice in the openings and especially the first 6 moves or so before things go “out of book.”
The fact that I often lose these 3 minute Blitz games on time, even from a winning position, doesn’t really worry me at this stage. It’s more a chance to drill and learn for me.
In the lesson, Kestony went over one of my 15/10 games from the previous week. I had the Black pieces against a Player with a (1500???) rating. We got into an Advance Caro Kann and whilst I made plenty of mistakes, (wasting tempos trying to save a Bishop I should have been happy to exchange, protecting against threats that were never real when I should have been developing my pieces, etc) my overall play was a lot more sensible and less blunder prone right up until the endgame. I found myself fortunate enough to be in a pretty good position where I should have at least had a draw, if not a win. Alas I calculated to what I thought was a winning position and then played the last move of my calculation instead of the first and blundered my Queen. Here’s the position below.
And here's the full game so you can see my terrible blunder!
Kestony pointed out that at my level, players often play reasonably well until the first critical stage of the game that requires concrete calculation and then we get lazy and just make any move. Too often a losing one. We did some exercises together where Kestony coached me through his thinking process as I struggled to solve problems. The main take away from these exercises for me was Kestony’s constant admonition “Don’t just stare at the board! Make moves! Calculate moves!”
I worry at times that teaching a beginner as low rated as me must be incredibly boring and frustrating for Kestony but he does a good job of not showing it and is very encouraging.
I feel like I’m learning and progressing and I’m certainly doing all the work Kestony sets for me.
My Rapid rating has started to increase since we began our lessons.
And even my Blitz rating is showing an upward trend again.
As you can see, there's plenty of room for improvement, so I'll keep working with Kestony, keep doing the homework he assigns, keep playing, and keep posting my progress here.
I wish you all a safe time wherever you might be. Locked down or not.
Very cool story. Keep updating us.
Sounds like you are on a sound path for improvement. Look forward to following along.
"... Sure, fast games are fine for practicing openings (not the most important part of the game for most players) and possibly developing decent board vision and tactical 'shots', but the kind of thinking it takes to plan, evaluate, play long endgames, and find deep combinations is just not possible in quick chess. … for serious improvement ... consistently play many slow games to practice good thinking habits. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2002)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627052239/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman16.pdf
Thanks for sharing this. It is really interesting and it sounds like you have a good coach. But one thing that I am curious about is why you seem to be only playing rapid games. I would have thought playing some longer time-control games and really thinking about your moves would be a good idea.
Thanks for sharing this. It is really interesting and it sounds like you have a good coach. But one thing that I am curious about is why you seem to be only playing rapid games. I would have thought playing some longer time-control games and really thinking about your moves would be a good idea.
Hi Corum,
A very valid point. The main reason I play a lot of 15/10 Rapid is simply the time constraints of work and family. I start my day at 5am and teach music starting before school at 7:30am through till 6:00pm by the time I get home, dinner, ironing kids uniforms, washing up, lesson prep for my students, etc, there's barely enough time to get my chess homework done.
I think it was John Bartholomew that suggested 15/10 as being the minimum time control for those serious about Chess improvement. I try to play in the Rapid Swiss 15/10 tournaments here on weekends and fit in Blitz games whilst waiting for lessons to start etc throughout the day.
I agree with all those who'll tell me to play longer time control but it is what it is. For better or worse, I think the shorter time controls are becoming increasingly popular anyway. Pace of life and all that.
Thanks for sharing this. It is really interesting and it sounds like you have a good coach. But one thing that I am curious about is why you seem to be only playing rapid games. I would have thought playing some longer time-control games and really thinking about your moves would be a good idea.
Hi Corum,
A very valid point. The main reason I play a lot of 15/10 Rapid is simply the time constraints of work and family. I start my day at 5am and teach music starting before school at 7:30am through till 6:00pm by the time I get home, dinner, ironing kids uniforms, washing up, lesson prep for my students, etc, there's barely enough time to get my chess homework done.
I think it was John Bartholomew that suggested 15/10 as being the minimum time control for those serious about Chess improvement. I try to play in the Rapid Swiss 15/10 tournaments here on weekends and fit in Blitz games whilst waiting for lessons to start etc throughout the day.
I agree with all those who'll tell me to play longer time control but it is what it is. For better or worse, I think the shorter time controls are becoming increasingly popular anyway. Pace of life and all that.
15/10 is not a bad time control I agree. Maybe a good compromise. I thought you were playing much faster games - my mistake.
One thing I might suggest is daily games - used to be called correspondence chess in the old days. I agree that playing long time controls live requires one to dedicate a lot of times and it might not be possible to that. But I play a lot of daily games where there is 1-3 days max to make each move. When I have a bit of spare time (maybe just 30 mins or so) I log on to chess.com and make moves in the games where it is my move. That works well for me and you might consider it. I typically have about 10 games on the go at any one time so when I log on there are normally a few games where it is my move.
Enjoyed reading your experience with learning chess. I too started at a later age. What I want to know is how you went about finding a coach & then how you selected the coach that you did? Now that would be interesting to me. Also please keep your progress going as it is neat to read.
I know we are friends, Kestony is my coach also. I boast about him every chance I get. You have found the diamond. He brought me from 900 to 1400 in one yr. I did whatever he asked. Kestony is amazing.
Batch77
Enjoyed reading your experience with learning chess. I too started at a later age. What I want to know is how you went about finding a coach & then how you selected the coach that you did? Now that would be interesting to me. Also please keep your progress going as it is neat to read.
I looked up the coaching forums here and also did a search on Lichess. There are a million or more people offering chess coaching. Unfortunately, and here's the big hitch to the whole process, it's very much a case of "Caveat Emptor" or buyer beware.
If I can use my own experience as a full time music teacher to illustrate:
We get a lot of young kids (early to mid 20's) come and work in our organisation. They are all very accomplished on their chosen instrument, studying or completed studies at the Conservatorium or University level and overwhelmingly they make terrible teachers for the first 5 to 10 years!
They all play far better than I do these days. I don't even call myself a "player" anymore. What I am and what they are not (yet) is a music teacher and the the two are very very different skill sets.
Too many times we have to let these young kids go because they just aren't willing to put in the time and effort necessary to get the result for the students. Teaching someone who can already play and helping them get better is difficult. Teaching someone who can't yet play and helping them get better is a whole lot more work. You have to have a method that is proven yet flexible and for every hour you teach, you should expect to be doing roughly the same amount of lesson prep and post lesson assessment.
Too many music teachers assume it's simply sitting there watching and listening and pointing out the mistakes. It's not that simple. The student isn't stupid. They might not play as well as you but hey aren't stupid. They know they made a mistake. They've made that mistake a thundered times. They can hear it just the same as you.
What they are looking for from you as a teacher, is a plan, a method, tailored to their particular makeup and learning patterns, to help them progress. That takes work. Experience and hard work.
I found a few local teachers via Chess.com and Lichess that offer lessons via Skype and got in touch with them. All of these Coaches advertised that they had spots available and were actively seeking students.
One is a very well known Chess blogger, a GM who is extraordinarily active here and on all the Chess FB groups, but not only did he take forever to respond to emails, when he finally did, his lesson rates were way out of my reach. I'm talking top tier $$$
That's fine. he's a GM and values his time accordingly but it wasn't for me. I wasn't about to pay top $$$ for sporadic communication with a GM who had (in my opinion) too many projects on the go to devote time to a low rated student.
Another was a very popular YouTuber. A local IM whose streams I really enjoy, but again, he didn't bother getting back to me. Again, no harm no foul but I'll keep looking.
I finally found Kestony just from reading through all the forum posts here. His name kept popping up and people seemed very happy with his teaching. I got in touch and he got back to me promptly. We set up a first lesson and things went well.
I have very high expectations of any teacher. As a teacher with 30+ years of experience and a trainer of teachers, I expect from a Chess coach the same effort that I put into teaching my music students. Simple as that.
On the flip side, Kestony has a right to expect that I'll accept he knows what he's doing and follow his plan diligently and conscientiously. That's the universal tacit agreement between teacher and student that makes or breaks the whole deal.
I appologise for the lengthy rant in response to your query but I think it's a very important subject. In Chess and music and so many other fields, good players are a dime a dozen. Good teachers are rarer than rocking horse poo.
As a student, just remember "you're in control."
If you're shelling out your hard earned $ for lessons, make sure the coach is earning it and putting in the effort, not just going through the motions and giving you stuff you could get from the post game engine analysis or an online tactics trainer.
As a student, again if you're shelling out your hard earned $ don't waste the teacher's time. Do your work. Come to the lesson prepared and ask a lot of questions. be prepared to accept that the answer might not be the easy option you were hoping for.
I hope this helps.
Happy Easter
I know we are friends, Kestony is my coach also. I boast about him every chance I get. You have found the diamond. He brought me from 900 to 1400 in one yr. I did whatever he asked. Kestony is amazing.
Batch77
That's a great improvement!!! Well done!!!
Andrews: I received your message and want to thank you for your astuteness in this. I also did not think the information was too lengthy. It will help to make a selection. Even my try to get in touch with the coach that you have.
Thanks for answering!
Hope your Easter was a great one. Stay safe!
Hi guys,
I've had a few people message me wondering how to get in touch with Kestony. @Kestony
You can email Kestony at : kestonychess@gmail.com
or get in touch via Skype: kiesagaming
I did get hold of Kestony at the gmail address that you have posted. He is very reasonable in his rate per lesson. He gets back to you really quick. I have watched a few of his video's on You Tube & really like them. He is really helpful in all the questions that I asked him about becoming a student. Thank you for your reply. Stay safe and best wishes from me to you.
Dear Chessfriend,
Don't forget that my discounts will be valid till the end of April, so don't hesitate to write me and let's start our training! 
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Gabor Balazs. I am a Hungarian FM, fighting for the IM title. My top ELO is 2435. I have been playing chess for 21 years. I won the Hungarian Rapid Championship twice (U16 and U18).
I love teaching chess and it is very important for me that both of us enjoy the lessons beside the hard work. I have pupils almost all the levels from beginners to advanced players (1100-2200 ELO).
Why should you choose me?
- I have a widespread opening repertoire (a lot of openings are analysed by strong Grand Masters).
- I have a lot of chess books in PDF and Chessbase format, so I can teach you the main middlegame plans, the art of calculations, famous chess games and the endgame theory.
- I have elaborated, personalized training plans, which help you to improve your skills effectively.
- I help you analyse your games deeply, so you can realise your mistakes and learn from them.
- I am really flexible and hard-working person, the quality of my work is really important for me.
Please, contact me (balazsgabor1991@gmail.com), if you are interested in working with me, I am looking forward to your message.
Hi guys,
I'm an adult beginner. I'm 54 years old and I've been playing now for about 8 months.
As a beginner, I guess I did what many here do. I joined up, started playing and soon discovered that I had an awful lot to learn if I ever hoped to improve and not get crushed repeatedly, even playing other beginners.
My first step in looking to improve, was to jump on YouTube and and search for lessons on how to get better and what to practice. There were literally thousands of videos to choose from and it can be quite overwhelming trying to sort the wheat from the chaff but eventually I was able to find a handful of very good YouTube channels that not only had good content, but also presenters who were able to deliver that content in a clear, well articulated, methodical way that was approachable and beneficial to someone at my very beginning level.
Some that spring to mind straight away are:
IM John Bartholommew
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hOVYvNn79Sl1Fc1vx2mYA/featured
The Saint Louis Chess Club
https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub
GingerGM (GM Simon Williams)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClV9nqHHcsrm2krkFDPPr-g
Hanging Pawns (Stjepan Tomic)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkJdvwRC-oGPhRHW_XPNokg
MatoJelic
https://www.youtube.com/user/MatoJelic
Of course there are many, many other great YouTube channels for the would be "Chess improver".
I watched a lot of videos, tried to learn a few openings, did tactics puzzles now and then and played online whenever I could.
My results were all over the place. My games were (and still are) full of blunders. I had no illusions about becoming a GM but I did want to improve. I was willing to work at it in a dedicated and organised fashion (I'm a music teacher by profession, so I know the value of daily practice) but I felt like I needed guidance. The world of Chess pedagogy is huge and information, in and of itself, was proving useless. I'd watch a YouTube lesson and understand the ideas and concepts but I wasn't able to translate those ideas into my own performance on any consistent basis.
About 2 months ago, I made the decision to get a Chess coach. Due to the financial restraints of raising a family and the economic downturn we're all experiencing, I would only be able to do lessons once every two weeks, but as a music teacher, I knew that a) a good teacher would give me more than enough to work on to keep me busy for two weeks and b) most students need more than one week to learn, absorb, assimilate and utilize new concepts anyway.
After searching around the Coaching forum here, I came upon a coach who was highly recommended
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-mentor/streamer-youtuber-offers-chess-lessons?page=1
I got in touch with Kestony @Kestony and we set up a fortnightly schedule.
What follows below is my journey to chess improvement. It's my hope that other beginners looking to improve and wondering whether coaching is the right option for them can read along and get a sense of what they might be in for and how the journey might unfold. Also, by blogging my progress, it helps me to hold myself accountable and do the work necessary to improve.
Of course, everyone's journey will be a little different. My successes and failures will be my own responsibility. A "Chess Coach" just that, a Chess Coach not a miracle worker. All you can and should expect from a coach is that they put the same effort into their lesson preparation and teaching (for example: if they ask you to analyse and annotate your games, you should reasonably expect that they will look over them), as you do in being conscientious about following up on the work they assign you.
With that introduction out of the way, welcome to my journey!