I went to the site and had the 1st free video emailed to me. I looked up his name on the USCF. His address is from North Carolina but I have never heard of him. I grew up in the South and played there a few times in the last couple of years. He has no USCF id or rating. He claims to be from Chicago, which is my hometown. Again, never heard of him, although I have only played chess a couple of times in Chicago, I have heard of the more common masters. OK, Charles Kimball does not appear to be a US master, he could still be a great coach for many people.
The title line of his page is more than a little cheesy: It's a Shame for You Not to Pistol Whip Your Chess Opponents Every Time-When Our Customers Do It So Easily
Not even Carlsen wins every time, much less easily every time.
His 1st freebie video is only 3 minutes long and he spends most of that time saying he will tell you the secret to openings. When he finally says his secret it is mobility, he claims the rook is stronger than the bishop because it can access every square but this ignores the fact that the knight can also access every square and few people claim the knight is stronger than the bishop. Yes mobility is a key factor in the rook being stronger but the main reason is the rook hits 14 squares from anywhere on the board, while the bishop hits 13 in the center and as few as 7 from the corner. There are also more complicated factors such as the most common pawn structures, particularly for black, tend to leave one bishop hampered by his own pawns (French, Queen's Gambit etc).
In my brief conclusion, he could have valuable information that helps people get better but what I saw was exagerrated claims/false promises and incorrect information in his intro video. It is much easier for me to help someone get better quickly when they have never had a coach than it is to try and undo the damage done by a bad coach.
Two old sayings come to mind, there is no such thing as a free lunch and you get what you pay for. IMO, the quickest way to get better is to hire an experienced coach. Dan Heisman made a great video here on the benefits of a good coach. There are many. Chess.com does not provide a list of its top coaches. Since they do not process payments anymore, they probably don't have the data to do this. The ICC does, you can go to chessclub dot com and click the link to teachers at the bottom. None that I know of will promise you will win every game easily. The complexity of chess is a main reason it is more popular than tic tac toe or checkers.
Does anyone know if these videos and audiobooks are good, and for what rating of a player which they might be appropriate?