Lessons - for Experts

Chances are if your rated anywhere from 1700 to 2000, you could be considered an expert, but also, we can argumentatively say that for a complete beginner a 1400 is an expert. Having said that, chess training today is completely different than what it use to be. Instead of paperback books, we have PDF files with dual monitors, and a board and a chess engine. Instead of hiring a GM to spar against, we have +3200 rated engines which play well, impeccably.

We have a selection of software to choose from, all which are commercially available online. The experience can be overwhelming and time consuming for a beginner or expert, of which I would like to expedite to facilitate the most important features to ease the training process.

some common questions:

Why is this worth my time?

Botvinnik was once asked, what are the best chess books to read? he stated: "in all modesty, mine".
I have spent over ten years, using chess software, and reading chess books. I can say that I have assimilated the pedagogical voices of the players and their methods and gained a feeling for what is valuable/exclusive in terms of chess training and not. exclusive... that is something special in chess.

No no, but really, how is this worth my time?

Maurice Ashley, in a speech once stated something along the lines of the moments in chess when a player says "Ahh, or a-ha" as a player gets better, there are less "Ahh's or a-ha's".

My goal is to offer you some "Ahh's and a-ha's" to help you move faster and get to where you want to be in a forthcoming chess training future :)

300 Positions

Should you be an expert, the focus of my training is in presenting to you a classical model of chess development. That of the 300 positions. It is a Russian notion that to be of certain level you should know 300 position well enough, or by heart.

The concept is revolutionary and I would say that to be the most advanced beginner in the world you would need 300 positions well explained, to be a player of expert level you would need 3,000 positions well explained, and to be master level I would estimate 12,500.

World Candidate

If you hypothesize and contemplate the number of positions to be world candidate level, I would shoot at about 250,000.

But what about U.S. Champion level?

it is an estimation.

Our training methodology is in black and white. We focus on the development of a player based on their accrual knowledge of key positions in all phases of the game. Every player is to have a chess database of knowledge which is kept as a journal or mental notebook. It is saved and backed up in dropbox ( a file back up service publicly available online free of cost) should there be any problems in keeping the files saved and secure.

The positions selected and studied are customized for the student/beginner/enthusiast with the purpose of inspiring thought and reflection on the game of chess.

and this is how we shoot for the stars in terms of developing as a chess player. We set a goal to study x amount of positions a week and develop holistically.

If you were to estimate the number of games that a player plays a day on an internet chess club... lets say 10 games a day. thats 3,600 games a year. Should you study the resulting positions of your speed chess games you should be an expert level in a years time and close to master level in two years time.

Other than having your own database of games, you could also have the one that you and your coach work on.

As a coach I choose 40-50 positions a week for study during class time and my student is offered a database of games where he could choose positions of his liking with questions to be answered in class.

I invite you to contact me to talk about your specific training needs so that I can be of service in your development as a player online.