I am a teacher (sport), and one of the most common things I hear from students (for instance who want to learn tennis) is "I don't have any talent!" or something like this.
I usually say: "Don't, worry, I am a very talented tennis coach. With your lack of talent and my talent to teach we will make you an average player". One kind of talent is the talent to suffer to reach something, to stay focus, don't giving up. I perceive myself as really weak player, but I know that a lot of people here would like to have my rating. And I know that once I get rated something like 1800 or 1900 here (if at all) I am sure I will still feel as I would be a complete beginner.
Since years I am asking other people in the forum about own experiences with a chess coach. I waited so long to hire a coach because I thought that it would be somehow embarrassing to expose all my weaknesses and lack of talent during the lessons. And I thought I should not take this hobby too seriously. But I am curious to see how much a coach will help me to improve.
And it is a little bit embarrassing. You are there, you get a position to talk about, and you begin to show how ignorant you are in this task.
The coach is GM Alex Colovic. I know him from Chessable, where he contributed with some really wonderful repertoire books (I know I know, in my level I should forget opening, play only by opening principles).
Basically Alex is showing you a position, and you have to go through different candidates, and possible answers by the opponent, until you come to a final conclusion.
The first position I could win the quality (bishop takes rook), which would be not that good for me: the bishop would take back my bishop, attack a rook and (after the rook moves away) take my knight and destroy my pawn structure in front of my king. Really not good to get this only for the quality.
I tried another move, which was a "positional good move". After he said this I tried hard to see a combination, and I saw it in seconds (a bishop sac for a pawn, pawn takes, knight takes forking king and rook, game more or less over). I have done a lot of tactics in the last months, so I know most of the most common motifs, and although I am really not talented, but I saw enough tactics to know that sometimes the most absurd-looking move can be winning - if you dare to investigate most or all forcing moves in a position.
The next position was also related to tactics: he helped me quite a lot, showing me at a certain point that my queen could take a pawn with check (why I didn't see it? No idea). But one of the variations ended with a smothered mate, that I did already at least three times in my blitz games!
Finally we had a endgame position. I am learning de la Villa's 100 Endgames You Must Know and Dvoretky's Endgame Manual, but I am still at the beginning. However, with some help at the end I saw how I could draw the position (getting at the rim with the king, and white cannot improve the position, with a stalemate if white try to take my pawn). I saw a similar position in Dvoretky's book just some days ago.
Here is an example how Alex works in his chess lessons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P_QzQ033Bo
I asked him how useful it is for an almost beginner like me to purchase Chessbase. He said this would be interesting for tournament preparation, but otherwise I should work with books / physical board (actually I do this).
I told him that I have really problems in visualize a position (I have a horrible spatial orientation, something that is in some situations really embarrassing). He said I should take a position from a book, study for some seconds, close the eyes and try to remember the set up. Then look again, close the eyes again, check again, until things begin to improve. I will do this today
I had already some good inputs how to improve my game. The most important thing is really to check several candidates moves seriously before making my final decision. And I will work harder with calculation, both with endgames and tactics. To make the next lessons less embarrassing