Why have a coach when you can have a book ?

This

Chess is a silly board game.  School is important.

Totally different, poor analogy.

The analogy is a bit off, because with school when your very young you need to go to know how to learn, whereas chess I believe if your just learning the rules, simple play, you should do that by yourself. I always felt I could have done higher education by myself, as I learn better from reading/self studying, so it's almost the opposite.

depends on how you define coaching too. Fischer never had an official coach but in his formative years he spent a LOT of time at a local chess hang out learning, playing , and sharing with the very strong master john collins. The result http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Collins

Nakamura had the same sort of training. His father was a strong FM and good coach, but once he reached 2200 he didnt have much formal training and just did stuff on his own. (he was USCF master at 10) I am Sure that he had guidance after that by his father but it was more informal in its nature (you might like this book,etc.)

the comment about college and books is also excellent. players need to be challenged, thier ideas and skills put to the test and exposed for the falsehoods and truth. 

You should also seperate the idea of a coach and teacher. a teacher is someone who helps imparts knowledge while a coach is someone who helps impart skills. (this is a rough definition) Coaches help overcome mental and practical weaknesses. A good coach is part cheerleader, part father/mother figure, part friend, part drill sergeant, part motivatioal speaker,... etc...have seen good coaches who barely would crack the 1200 level but have motivated students to become exceptional.

I have watched  GMs who could teach something but make horrid coaches. 

Haha I wanted a coach too when my rating was around 800+ in April. But he said he wanted students with higher rating, so I got rejected. Now in July, my rating shot up to 1100 without a coach. It may be pretty slow to improve your rating, but with time, you'll surely get there as long as you have ample of time to play. If you don't have a coach and you're still a student, I suggest that you play like crazy during the holidays. It works!

@alexlaw

Quality coaches who get students to improve are worth $70 an hour and consderably more. It's how some of us make our living.

How do you arrive at their being worth $70/hour? Or is your making a living off it at that rate supposed to be justification enough?

Were I to ever go the coaching route, I wouldn't pay you (or anyone else) $70/hour, and I know I don't have to obtain a quality coach. I know this, because if you're setting your rate @ $70/hour based upon your cost of living, then I can obtain a quality coach who is at least your equal elsewhere where the cost of living is far, far lower.

That is one of the big pluses of chess today - we here in North America have absolutely no location based competitive edge on this form of "trade," while as consumers we have considerable purchasing power with our dollars overseas, where relative prices are far lower.

Technology has been the great equalizer there (as elsewhere). And - again were I in the market - I would happily pay the much lower fee to an overseas coach (which would still be enough to provide him a very comfortable living) before I'd pay $70/hour to anyone who sets their rates so high that they ignore what their prospects alternatives, and thereby price themselves out of the market.

People have always bartered since time began. your question is just an entirely different area revolving around economics and the maturity of a society. 

to put it more simply money is just an advanced form of barter. Its much easier to move around X number of coin thats worth X number of cows than say 20 cows. 

you seem to think that because theres technology that it equalized everything its actually information that your talking about an infact that too much information is one of the major problems today. The ability to define what is important NOW is a skill set. 
I can give you more material about chess than you ever would finish in your lifetime./ Would you be able to sort through it, find the relevent materials, sort out what is garbage and what is not with out guidance? Doubtful unless you are a prodigy but even those do better with a mentor or guide. name one, just one person that is a top player in any activity today that didnt have a 'teacher' in the broad sense of the word.  a person that offered materials that were important, that helped them with  the struggles of dealing with failure and success? 

The issue of cost is based on multiple factors. If you life in a small town where cost of living is lower then costs are generally lower. if you live in Manhattan then you can expect to pay a premium for everything.

people see 70.00 and think wow thats a lot of $ compared to the 20.00 I am getting an hour for something BUT there are expenses people dont see that businesses pay for,.. about 15.3% on top of what your paid, training etc. insurance to run a business rent etc...  70 is proably closer to 30-35/hr  in real pay.

what do you get for that amount? well depends on the coach you get guidance. information. coaching and education about a subject. If you dont feel its worth that much then dont pay it look for a cheaper coach. but theres a saying... you get what you pay for.

I charge 40-50.00 an hour locally but i go to peoples homes. I also am VERY  successful for the level I teach at. I know my limits and know when to pass of students to more knowledgeable coaches. I have had 2200-2400 rated masters tell me multiple times I do a good job and am very knowledgeable, and know my limits. (I will say teaching kids at the lower levels hurts your practical chess though,... groan) is it worth the cost? well depends on what your expectations are. 1st place in state? top 100 in country? or just have fun? you pay for it in time a coach can just help your time be used more efficently.

I'll counter your cliche about "getting what you pay for" with the fact that prices are relative, and particularly on services: what someone in a poorer part of Eastern Europe (for example) pays for a plumber will be relatively the same as what I'd pay for one here, but in absolute monetary values they would pay considerably less (or far fewer of my Canadian dollars after currency conversion).

If you are able to get $40-$50/hour to coach chess, I have no issue with that - its a central tennet of our capitalist system that one should charge whatever the market will bear. However, there was an undertone in the previous poster's comments (the one I replied to) that suggests that if he is a "quality coach" he is entitled to $70/hour. That sense of entitlement I took issue with, because it ignores the global market we live in.

You also misumderstood my point about technology; it wasn't about the quantity of it that one could find, but rather the ease and low cost with which information can be delivered in a wide array of formats today.

If I have a choice between an Eastern European, in one of their poorer countries, of comparable skill to an American living in Manhattan, why should the cost of living of the person in Manhattan be of issue to me? It isn't.

It offers its own advantage to potential students in his own city, in that their money will be buying a valuable component that is otherwise missing from the equation: face-to-face instruction. Since I wouldn't be getting that here, there is no logic for me to subsidize his cost of living by paying for a service that will be delivered via the same medium as if I got it from a coach living in a poorer country (who has considerably lower overhead and who, I could expect, would charge a lower price for similar instruction).
Maybe that is the part I should have clarified in my previous post.

Scandium, you must still be aware of two things about Easter Europe coaches :

• they won't understand all your jokes or any elaborate explanation of why you hung your rook...
• they'll give you much more work than their American counterparts

<joke disclaimer>

Depends on your level (the stronger the player, the more difficult to locate the weaknesses) and also if you provide comments or answer questions or just give raw game scores.

I'd say ~10 games for an intermediate player should already give a good idea.

I thought intermediate player as 1500-1700 USCF.

1300 is still 'improving player'. With improving players the 'chess thought process' is usually lacking, so it's good to discuss the games with your coach and answer his questions.

I'm nowhere near ready for a coach anyway (if ever I did get there). As I was quite a bit stronger than I am now in just coming off my 8 year break from chess, I already have a pretty clear cut and easy to follow study plan, and one which covers each phase of the game as follows:

1. Tactics: Right now I'm working through Polgar's Chess Tactics for Champions. I plan to work through it 3 times, doubling the number of problems I do daily with each pass through. Then my next candidate is a newer book I have ordered called "Capablanca: a primer of checkmate." Then the "Complete Chess Workout," using the same method I'm using with Polgar's book. That's as far ahead as I have the tactical component laid out so far. 

2. Strategy: Right now I'm finishing up GM McDonald's "Chess: the art of logical thinking." My planned follow up to that is "My System" (I have the new edition with the fresh retranslation), and then probably Marovic's "Secrets of Positional Chess." I have several books to pick from from there. I also work through whichever book I'm on daily.

3. Endgames: I'm using Silman's Complete Endgame Course for now. Once I've caught it up to one level beyond my current one, I'll look at supplementing my endgame study with another book. I haven't decided which one yet.

4. Openings: This is an area where I have no real regiment of study for, as I'm not at a level where solid opening play has a big impact in my games; I get by, mostly, with some knowledge of the ideas in the openings I do play rather than with concrete variations. Probably my single biggest achievement here is to have cemented a repetoire of sound openings that cover most of my games and which lead to positions I enjoy. I do have a few openings books that I'll glance at post-mortem, when I know it was an opening void that cost me the game.

Well, if you're interested some day in the future, you may find Eastern European coaches a good fit. Looks like you share a common work ethic.

I specifically referenced $70 an hour because that is the number @alexlaw mentioned.

People are free to pay or not pay for whatever services they want. If someone can get quality chess coaching (for example) somewhere else and pay less for it, good for them.

I am worth what I charge, and I am sure most coaches feel the same way. Otherwise, they are in the wrong field.

Do I feel "entitled" to earn a certain rate for my classes or lessons? Certainly I do, just like any other professional in any field.

This is a bit late, but that person playing Bobby Fischer in the pool kinda looks live Kevin Love...

70.00/hr is just a reference but yes things are based on a particular local econonmy. local Master coaches get about 60-70/hr so you can reference my rated based on that.  

A big part of coaching is also the personality and their ability to relate to their students. One big problem with interenet coaches is that they often are lacking in the ability to communicate very well and they also are more interested in turn over. Also an in-person coach is vastly superior to a distance coach, everything else being equal.

 I know dan's approach and he is a good coach for some people. Have you read his novice nook column?

Well there you go. There are more important things to you than chess, for example academics. And there's nothing wrong with that. "To each his own," etc.

But it's not fair to say that $X per hour is expensive because the potential rating gains don't have enough "value" in them. Many people would feel more satisfied and get more enjoyment from chess if they improved a lot.

Some people WOULD pay large sums of money for themselves or their child to go from 1000 to 1800.

When I finished college in 2005, I had no desire to (1) Ever go to school again, or (2) Have a conventional "career." None. Zero. At times I wasn't sure if I could make it just doing chess, but I am definitely doing better than most of my non-chess friends are, and I probably work only 20% as hard as they do, if that. Also, it's nice to wake up at 11:00am everyday and work in the afternoons and evenings only.

If more people knew the lifestyle and working conditions of established chess coaches, I think a lot more parents would be encouraging their kids to become strong chess players, rather than hoping employers deem them worthy enough to get a "good job" after jumping through untold academic hoops...and usually paying through the nose for the privledge of doing so.