Hello, my name is Valeriy Aveskulov and I am a GM from Ukraine.

You can read more about me on my personal webpage: www.chesstao.com.

I'm a half-retired chess player, who is coaching for more than 10 years and author who have been publishing the most interesting materials in different sources:

1. Attack with Black (book about Black repertoire against 1.d4 based on the Benko gambit)

2. Improving the Endgame Technique.

Book 1 - about Same-Colored Bishop Endgames: for ForwardChess app; ChessAble platform.

Book 2 from the same series about Opposite-Colored Bishop Endgames: for ForwardChess app; ChessAble format.

Book 3 for ForwardChess app and ChessAble.

3. Articles for ModernChess:

Learn from Stein;

The Art of Exchanges;

Saving Lost positions;

Master the Pawn Play;

The King as a Strong Piece;

The Danger of Making Natural Moves - Learn to Fight Your Reflexes;

Opposite-Coloured Bishops in the Middlegame.

Briefly about my coaching method.

My favorite topics are: prophylactical philosophy, play with two bishops, domination of the knight versus the bishop (or opposite), all types of endgames (both theoretical and practical examples), exchanges, isolated pawn, and so on. The collection of instructive materials normally is enough to pick up the corresponding materials right during the analysis of the student's game.

Talking about the openings, I try to save the lesson time for more general things because there is plenty of opening resources on our days. But when my student has a problem or when I see the problem myself, we discuss it. Of course, I can't be equally useful in all openings. I have my favorite openings where I'm the most useful for my students – QGD, Catalan opening, Benko Gambit, Najdorf variation, Rye Lopez, Caro-Cann, French for Black; all 1.e4 openings and some not-1.e4 openings for White. For many of variations, I have already prepared files that can be just double-checked with newer engines and ready for use. I'm open to analyzing new openings and finding out their secrets together with my students. This method is also useful because a student sees how a GM studies new openings.

In the lessons, I often pay attention to the psychological issues because practically all chess players have psychological problems and there is practically no chess literature on this topic. How to hold a concentration, how to be not nervous in the critical moments, how not to be scared by higher rated opponents, how not to be relaxed in the winning positions, and many other questions are being discussed in my lessons. Having my experience I am becoming more and more as a psychologist and some of the advice really can be helpful.

One more direction where I try to help my students is their tournament schedule. Where to play, which level of the opponents is more useful at the moment, how often to play? All these and close to these questions require professional assistance and I am ready to provide it.

There are many other (probably not less important) directions of chess improvement but I want to emphasize that if you have a dream of becoming really stronger chess player, our lessons will be just a good fundament for your serious work on your own. Lessons themself (unfortunately) do not make one 50 or 100 points of ELO stronger (even if he is trained by the best coach in the world). You need to be an active participant of the "Coach-Student" team – to ask the questions, to think about your own weak sides, to work actively both on the lesson and alone.

There is also another type of student that I often meet. They like chess and want to understand this play better in order to enjoy watching the games, reading books, or watching the videos. I do like chess myself very much and will be ready to be your guide to the Kingdom of Chess! We can focus on watching the classical immortal games, learning the history of different tournaments or matches, and so on. Chess history and chess culture definitely can be entertaining.

So, if you have a goal in chess and think that we can achieve it together, please go to the contact page and send me your first email. I will readily become your coach!

LuckyTiger