I dont think a rating gap is nessecarry for everyone either for example I onced coached someone who was no more than 56 or points below me! The reason he trusted and listend to me was because even tho were so close in rating he never beaten me before and I had a plus 3 or 4 against him and my caoching still bought his rating up and I had to work extremely hard to make sure it didnt surpass mine! Which is why when I was in the 1200s I still had coaches my rating simply because our match records would prove there superiority over me but I wouldn't recommend that for anyone whos rating surpasses I say 1500 since you would really need someone higher rated in most or a good 99.9 % of the time.
How and when to start coaching?
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chessmaster102 wrote:
glad this fourm was started may I ask is anyone with a chess.com rating above 1400 or OTB rating about 1200 intreasted in looking over and analyzing the games of some members of my club games so far we have 3 teachers with 11 students and some games are still overlooked by how many games are submitted to the 3 of us. 3 of the kids are already taken care of but the others which is a list below still need someone to help further there progress. The Sorry but I wont be able to pay even the 3 coaches are volunteered one's so they might leave at any time well 2 might (im one of the coaches and i'm not leavin).
I'll see what I can do. Feel free to send the games my way via message, or direct me to the games with a link of some sort.
NachtWulf wrote:
chessmaster102 wrote:
glad this fourm was started may I ask is anyone with a chess.com rating above 1400 or OTB rating about 1200 intreasted in looking over and analyzing the games of some members of my club games so far we have 3 teachers with 11 students and some games are still overlooked by how many games are submitted to the 3 of us. 3 of the kids are already taken care of but the others which is a list below still need someone to help further there progress. The Sorry but I wont be able to pay even the 3 coaches are volunteered one's so they might leave at any time well 2 might (im one of the coaches and i'm not leavin).
I'll see what I can do. Feel free to send the games my way via message, or direct me to the games with a link of some sort.
Thanks so much I appreciate it.
Jakario1977 wrote:
I am pretty sure that Christian is not asking for pay any more. Please ease off of him.
+1 so much anger he has. everyone makes mistakes or does somethign wrogn dont hate them for it.
I wouldn't want coaching from anything less than a titled player. Anyone less would just be teaching me how to push wood.
Do you think Tiger Woods' coach or say Peyton Manning's QB coach is going to be better than them?
This is not the same kind of coaching : coaching a pro or someone who has already achieved a high enough level is quite different from coaching a guy who doens't know the basics.
The technical requirements are not the same : in the 1st case you're more of an organizer and help with psychology, while in the second you must help him build up his chess. The stronger the player, the more he will be able to tell you what is really important and correct your important mistakes on the fly.
hicetnunc wrote:
Do you think Tiger Woods' coach or say Peyton Manning's QB coach is going to be better than them?
This is not the same kind of coaching : coaching a pro or someone who has already achieved a high enough level is quite different from coaching a guy who doens't know the basics.
The technical requirements are not the same : in the 1st case you're more of an organizer and help with psychology, while in the second you must help him build up his chess. The stronger the player, the more he will be able to tell you what is really important and correct your important mistakes on the fly.
+1
For the second type of coach, it is important that the coach must have sufficient and correct knowledge of chess. I know a real-life friend who learned chess from a dubious individual. He ended up inheriting some of that person's bad habits. It is not easy to correct those bad habits, and they persist till now.
I don't really know why beginners need teaching. There is enough information out there on everything a beginner needs.
I would agree motivating you to work on your own is one of the coach's main objectives. However, you could also expect him to provide relevant and organized feedback on your play, which he can't really do if he has no idea what's going on, or how to convey ideas in a simple way 
Scottrf wrote:
I don't really know why beginners need teaching. There is enough information out there on everything a beginner needs.
There's actually too much information. Structure can help you learn faster.
hicetnunc wrote:
Scottrf wrote:
I don't really know why beginners need teaching. There is enough information out there on everything a beginner needs.
There's actually too much information. Structure can help you learn faster.
I'm pretty sure plenty of study plans are available.
What makes a weak player great at structuring a beginners learning anyway, if they haven't been able to get significant gains themself?
Scottrf wrote:
hicetnunc wrote:
Scottrf wrote:
I don't really know why beginners need teaching. There is enough information out there on everything a beginner needs.
There's actually too much information. Structure can help you learn faster.
I'm pretty sure plenty of study plans are available.
What makes a weak player great at structuring a beginners learning anyway, if they haven't been able to get significant gains themself?
I only know of chess.com study plans, but maybe there are other available ?! Even there, you could expect a coach to design something a little more adapted to you.
But okay, if you use a structured study plan, you're already doing well ! 
The difference between chess and golf is that in golf it's possible to know what you should be doing without being able to implement it. Therefore the coach doesn't need to be a better player than the student
In chess, if you know enough to be able to teach someone which moves to make, there is no reason for you to not be able to make those moves yourself and therefore be a stronger player. If you're not stronger it's because you have weaknesses which will mean you miss important features of your students games and they are likely to fall into the same weaknesses.
A bit late to this post, but you've done a GREAT job helping me along so far. You definitely have the knowledge and concepts down enough to coach those at a lower level than yourself at the moment.
CHESS.COM GIVES YOU AN OPTION TO COACH BEGINERS --TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS OTION
Scottrf wrote:
The difference between chess and golf is that in golf it's possible to know what you should be doing without being able to implement it. Therefore the coach doesn't need to be a better player than the student
In chess, if you know enough to be able to teach someone which moves to make, there is no reason for you to not be able to make those moves yourself and therefore be a stronger player. If you're not stronger it's because you have weaknesses which will mean you miss important features of your students games and they are likely to fall into the same weaknesses.
That's true to some degree. But there's still a case of theory vs practice, even in chess. In the case of players who have achieved a high level and fallen back down, they will know a lot of theory, training tips, and have strong evaluation and planning skills in positions, but perhaps due to age or rust can't implement it well enough in a timed tournament game.
And while I'm talking mostly about IMs and GMs there, I believe it's also true for amateurs. A former expert can still glance at a familiar position and tell you your d5 break was wrong, and how it's usually prepared, or what the better plans are... even if in a real game his technique wouldn't be able to see the game through to the end vs. other experts.
hicetnunc wrote:
Scottrf wrote:
hicetnunc wrote:
Scottrf wrote:
I don't really know why beginners need teaching. There is enough information out there on everything a beginner needs.
There's actually too much information. Structure can help you learn faster.
I'm pretty sure plenty of study plans are available.
What makes a weak player great at structuring a beginners learning anyway, if they haven't been able to get significant gains themself?
I only know of chess.com study plans, but maybe there are other available ?! Even there, you could expect a coach to design something a little more adapted to you.
But okay, if you use a structured study plan, you're already doing well !
No, I think you're right. I've gotten some very useful tips from players at clubs who were 300 some points stronger than me... things I noticed immediately improved my game. A coach can spot a specific weakness and has the possibility of remedying it right away. However likely a general study plan is to cover that weakness, it will likely take a long time before you get there. And even then you have to notice it for the gold nugget it is.
every 6 months I look back at my games and think ''wow, I was terrible back then''.
The idea that someone like me from 6 months would teach is imo laughable.
So when I see people that arent even near to being half as good as I was 6 months ago talking about how they want to take money for coaching and teaching I get very irritated.
I'm not good enough to coach. If we are talking about helping your friend how to play chess then why not but if you're talking about being a legitemate trainer/coach then you're only deluding yourself. You're in a position where you should set up a training plan for yourself, not for others.
edit; hicetunic on post 6 said what I wanted to say but in a better way. Just read his post lol
This is what I fear--particularly because I and many others have been able to learn chess just fine without a teacher. At my current level, it seems like charging beginners for a lesson would be boarderline cheating them, since there are plenty of people and sources online (e.g. on chess.com) that would willing to provide the same advice completely free of charge.
Frankly, I'm not interested in teaching for "fast and easy money". On the other hand, if I take the time to try and identify a person's weaknesses and tailor lessons to addressing them to help the student improve faster than they would on their own, I believe it would be fair to ask for a fee.
If I were to give lessons, I would try to teach beginners to (for example) develop/castle quickly, take heed of pawn structures and the resulting positional demands, recognize various tactical and mating motifs, and learn how to execute an attack on a weakened king (ideas such as deflection, identifying/eliminating defenders, etc.). Of course, it ultimately depends on what they already know and need to work on. Personally, I believe that I have a relatively solid opening and middlegame, but a weak endgame. Is it a good idea to teach what middlegame I can, in addition to providing hand-picked tactics practice? Or should I go learn my endgame, and forget this whole thing until I manage to patch most of the holes in my own chess fundamentals?
Edit:
It seems that my idea of "beginner" might vary from another's idea of "beginner". In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I myself were classified as one in the eyes of any master. In terms of who it's ok to teach, is everyone actually talking about those who recently learned the rules, flip-flop their knights and bishops, and set up the board with the wrong colored squares? Or are we talking about people who have all of those down, whose priorities should be something like basic board awareness, checking that piece X is attacked/defended how many times adequately, and checking for hanging pieces/mate-in-ones?
You're absolutely not at the level where you should be telling people how to play in order to prepare them for tournament play, sorry.
Pointing out the flaws and errors of a 1100 player is not even almost a hard task. Basic tactical stuff, castle asap, opening principles and once they have a hang of tactics they're going to be just as good as you are (it's that easy to break 1500, which is the level I'm placing you on)
So, there are three paths here:
A) You teach extremely weak players the most basic principles that they could really find out by simply googling after them. If you charge for this then you're exploiting their ignorance for your own profit. If you want to make beginners love chess more and get into chess more and want to help them by teaching them for FREE then you've gained my respect. If you're going to claim that this is not worth your time then simply don't do it. It's clearly not in your passion. I study alot of chess. I play alot of chess. I work godamn hard on my chess every single day of the week and I'm not doing it expecting someone to pay me for it. I do it because I love the game. If you don't feel the same passion for teaching people then don't worry, there are others to take your place.
B) You feel that since basic principles arent enough to actually qualify yourself to get paid you'll get into more serious ideas, explaining a bounch of opening theory and complicated tactical elements/endgames. Doing this is going to be simply counterproductive, it's like taking someone who just learned addition into a top notch university math class. They wont get what is going on and they'll be disinterested. If you demand compensation for doing this (needless) extra effort while crippling their play then you'll be even worse of a person than you would if you demanded pay for situation A
C) You realise that you could improve in so many ways. Do you feel that your middlegame/earlygame is strong now? Superb! Confidence will bring you many wins in those phases! Now look at your play from a few months back. I'm sure you'll think that you were compared to now completely awful back then. You'll feel exactly the same way in the future. This is an indication that there is plenty to learn. There will always be.
If you want to do some serious teaching then you have to be a seirous player before that. I've told myself that I wont offer any more coaching (I did shortly after I broke 1700 otb for free) untill I've at least gotten past 2000, and I'm pretty sure that even at that point I'll feel like I'm not good enough.
Summing up my advice from experience and opinion: If you want to teach simply because you want to spread your love for chess; teach weak players for free.
If you want to delude yourself that you're a strategical 2000 genius who because of -insert excuse- is not reaching that rating but can still teach players that want to be competitive for a fee then go ahead and hop onto my list of hate right here next to Christiansoldier. I believe you've already read another huge rant of mine why that idea is completely stupid.
although there is probably some truth to what you say, being a good teacher does not necessarily mean you have to have a high rating or even need to be better than the players that you teach. The most important thing in my mind is that the students have the respect of you and that you can motivate them. Do you think Tiger Woods' coach or say Peyton Manning's QB coach is going to be better than them? Also, if you say that everything can be ascertained via Google, then there is really no need in the world for school or for services people. In some areas of the country, there is a huge demand for chess teachers, and I would say that the majority of them aren't any good. So if the OP has the passion and likes working with kids and has decent chess ability, sure why not? Jus t make sure to keep the 300-500 point gap.
agreed back when I was below 900 I actually did have caoches with LOWER rating then I did and yet learned so much from them I surpassed 1000 in a couple of months although thats proabaly not the best example since I firmly believe anyone below 1000 could use help from anyone thats not a total beginner themself.