Could someone coach me?

Coaching fees generally vary from $15 to $100 per hour. It's often recommended to choose a coach rated at least 400 points above you. After that factors such as coaching style, playing style, and dedication to students may be more important.

I know of a retired NM who devotes all his time to teaching, and is arguably a better coach than some GMs with busy schedules (alas, the NM also charges twice as much!).

I think I know who you are talking about,  NM Dan Heisman?  If so I agree this guy is an amazing teacher, heck I'd have tried to get lessons from him if they weren't so expensive.  Still I try to listen to his one hour live show on ICC every week to learn a thing or two.  Anyway disregard this comment if you were talking about someone else... 

I agree though you don't have to be the best of the best to have a deep and worthwhile understanding of the game that you can then impart to others.  Not to mention a lot of GM's make awful teachers as the ability to teach in a meaningful manner can be a different skillset all it's own.

Much_Afraid> I think I know who you are talking about,  NM Dan Heisman?

Bingo!  :)

Your right, let's not start a war here.  And in the future, when you knock someone down who is offering their services (literally answering the OP's question) don't talk about them like "This amatauer".  Say what you want about me being an amateur, but your entire tone was extremely insulting, and has contniued to be so. 

When you said "Surely you aren't dillusioned enought to think you are professional standard?"

This is another thinly veiled insult, literally implying that I am already disillusioned. 

Also, I don't get how you had to 'see into the future'.  I literally checked his rates right after I read your post, and it said $19 usd per hour.  I'm CHEAPER than that.  That's because I am not a titled player.

As to what kind of value you will get out of your lessons, anyone can easily judge my work that I've done on this site and my chess videos and judge for themselves. 

Hopefully this can be the end of the discussion.  But just for discussions sake, here are few reasons why $15 an hour is a good value

#1 I have LOTS of experience teaching people stuff.  I can usually tell what you understand and don't, and pace myself accordingly. 

#2 I take personal interest in the games and act as a coach for all my students regardless of whether you've paid for 100 lessons or 1.  That means I ask to see your games and spend far more time analyzing them than I charge in lesson fees.

#3 I have a huge library of software, dvds, videos, and books to use as reference sources at any time.  I've read alot and I know many concepts that don't get stressed very often that I've seen.

#4 I've spent a lot of time studying competetion, philosophy, and all sorts of games and crafts (music, strategy games, martial arts, etc. ).  One of the best books I ever read was 'the art of learning' by Josh Waitzkin.  I apply his and other theories in all my lessons.  Time management, psychology, etc. is extremely important.  In my last 17 tournament games, I haven't lost a single 1 (drew one).  This clearly speaks that I am under-rated, because some of my opponents were 1900+ (in fact every 1800+ opponent I played I beat).  I am also very competetive against masters, FM, IM, etc. on ICC and play regularly. 

#5 I do not teach a biased form of chess in which you learn not to get isolated pawns and all that junk.  I give people a long term foundation based on the stuff I have learned from reading 'My System' and other important books over and over again and trying to figure out what they meant. 

#6 I'm a native english speaker (huge plus when comparing me to foreign IM's and the like) and I type over 100+ wpm.  That means you're getting a lot less wasted time.  I can do voice lessons or whatever else.  I teach on servers where you get arrows, highlighted squares, and a record of the moves.  Usually that is playchess or icc. 

#7 I almost always go over the time limit for a lesson.  Generally speaking I'm only charging because I need the money, if I didn't, I'd be giving free lessons all day.  I log into chess.com and have given free lessons over live chess many times already.

So considering that I am $4 an hour cheaper, maybe there is SOME reason that someone might want me as a coach.  Who knows.  But please next time don't follow me around telling me how ridiculous I am for asking for money.  In fact, I usually only teach people rated at least 400 points below my rating, except when someone stronger specifically asks me.  I have even taught much stronger players specific opening ideas, which from the philosophy you're taking towards me in this regard would be completely impossible. 

In any case, I'm working on becoming titled soon, but it's pretty difficult to play in a decent tournament around here unless you travel.

(the above points are not criticisms of valeriy, i don't know valeriy, I'm sure he's a great guy, maybe i'll take lessons from him, he's got a good price).

OK, sorry I was a jerk. In fact I've been a massive jerk on this site. Sorry to anyone who got upset by me. I said before I'd never post on this site again after being an idiot to a certain user, but it seems me and confict go hand in hand so I'll actually go through with it this time. Save it for the board. no longer tracking any threads.

lol

Atomic there is no need for you to leave the forums just because you get into a disagreement here and there.  Hey if everyone was always getting along and holding hands in every topic the forums would be a bit of a boring place to be.  Is that what you want???  Do you want these forums to turn into the... Gameknot forums???  Yea that would be bad.  Sure I didn't agree with you in this thread but there have been a lot of other instances where I thought your posts were right on point (not that I'm the overall judge of good and bad posts but you know what I mean).  The bottom line is you'll never please everyone, still I hope ya decide to stick around you make the forums more interesting.