Expert in adult improvement - Verified review

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FIDE master and FIDE School Instructor with +10 years of coaching experience. Specialist on coaching adult improvers. Professional lessons, tailored homework, flexible scheduling and constant feedback. Available for one-on-one lessons to all levels.

I'm an adult improver myself! I started playing tournaments at 12, and was rated 1996 ELO at 18 years old.

Since then I've made the most progress in my chess, being my own coach for the most part. I've developed a passion for chess improvement that got me from 1996 to 2347 ELO and a FIDE Master title.

Here are some of my student's reviews:

"Juan has been an exceptional coach and a key part of my chess improvement. As a 1700+ USCF-rated player, I turned to him when my progress had plateaued, and in just six months, he helped me push past that barrier to reach over 1900 USCF. His lessons are always adaptive, engaging, and tailored to my needs. I genuinely look forward to every session. If you're looking for a coach to elevate your game, I highly recommend working with Juan." - Aiden Bartlett (July 2025)

"Juan is an excellent coach - reliable, conscientious and very engaged. He's been great at diagnosing areas of improvement to work on in my game and developing plans and lessons to make improving chess fun. I can't recommend him enough!" - Neil Hariani (June 2024)

"After picking up chess in my 30s and learning via YouTube etc., I eventually hit a plateau around 1850 (Lichess). After one year working with Juan, I am pushing for 2100. Juan is excellent at profiling players and figuring out what they need to work on: Besides refining my openings and reviewing games together, we heavily worked on middle game strategy and endgames. Juan also gave recommendations for what types of tactics to train regularly and supported me when I was ready to play my first OTB tournaments. Because of his expertise but also because Juan is very personable and pleasant to work with, I highly recommend profiting from his lessons!" - Tobias Füchslin (January 2024)

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