Most coaching hands you lines to memorize — and they evaporate the moment your opponent leaves the book. I teach you to reason at the board. Players who learn this way don't just gain rating. They keep it.
I learned chess before I learned most things. I was a kid pushing pawns seventeen years ago, and by my teens I'd won the national under-16 championship — not because I'd memorized more theory than anyone else, but because the coaches who shaped me refused to just hand over answers. They asked questions until I could find the answer myself. That's the moment that made me a player, and it's still the reason I teach the way I do.
These days I'm also a final-year medical student — and the two worlds turned out to be one. Medicine is taught the same way good chess is: nobody recites the answer to you, a senior just asks "what do you see, and what does it mean?" until your own reasoning is sharp enough to stand on its own. Years of training in both convinced me there's really only one way understanding sticks — you have to arrive at it yourself. Memorized lines evaporate. The reasoning you build with your own head stays.
I've since coached hundreds of students across four continents through Fiverr, earned 205 five-star reviews as a Level 2 seller, and watched three of them go on to win national titles of their own. That last number is the one I'm proudest of — playing well is one thing, but teaching someone else to win is a completely different craft, and it's the one I've spent years getting good at.
My promise is simple: I'll always tell you the truth about your chess. Where you're strong, where your points are leaking, and exactly what to work on next. No generic curriculum, no flattery — just the fastest honest path between you and the player you want to become.
Every lesson trains three questions until they become reflexes. They sound simple. They are the difference between a 1400 and a 1900.
After every move we ask what it created and what it abandoned — weak squares, loose pieces, open files. You stop seeing snapshots and start seeing the flow of the game.
Beginners calculate their own ideas. Champions interrogate their opponent's. We train prophylactic thinking until "what's their plan?" runs automatically before every move you make.
"It looks good" isn't a reason. Each candidate move gets backed with concrete lines. This discipline is trainable — and once you have it, it never leaves you.
No sign-up, no catch. This is exactly how I'd walk you through an idea in a session — read it, then go try it tonight.
Most games below master level aren't lost to deep strategy. They're lost to a move that looked fine and quietly let the opponent do something you never checked for. The fix isn't more theory. It's one habit, run before every move you make.
The habit: once you've found a move you like, don't play it yet. Picture it already on the board and ask — out loud, if you can — "okay, it's their turn now: what's the most annoying thing they can do to me?" Look specifically for checks, captures, and threats against your pieces. Only if the answer is "nothing serious" do you actually play it.
Why it works: blunders almost never come from a move you considered and rejected. They come from a move you never looked at — usually a check or a capture you'd have spotted in half a second if you'd only asked. This question forces you to look from the other side of the board, every time, until it runs on its own.
Try it tonight: play one game online and, before each move, silently name one thing your opponent could do in reply. You'll feel slower for about ten moves. Then it stops feeling like work — and your blunders start disappearing. That's the whole method in miniature: I don't hand you the answer, I hand you the question that finds it.
Want more like this? The opening course on Udemy teaches a full repertoire the same way — or scroll back up and solve the mate-in-two with me.
No commitment leaps. You'll know exactly what you're getting — and whether we're a fit — before you invest in a coaching block.
Send me your recent games. In a 30-minute session I'll show you precisely where your points are leaking — and tell you honestly whether coaching will help.
30 minutes · low costYou get a plan built around the two or three recurring mistakes costing you the most — openings, calculation, endgames, time management. Yours, not a template.
Tailored to your gamesLive lessons on a shared analysis board, homework positions, and game reviews between sessions — until the new thinking becomes a reflex you can't switch off.
We keep score in your gamesPatient, structured coaching for ages 6–16, from first moves to national-level competition. Parents are welcome to sit in — and you'll always get honest progress reports, not feel-good ones.
Stuck at the same rating for a year? We audit your real games, find the recurring errors that cost you the most points, and rebuild your thinking process around fixing them.
An opening repertoire shaped to your style, endgame technique, clock management, and the psychology of long games — built from 17 years of tournament experience.
The Socratic method needs airtime, so my weekly group classes are capped at four students, matched by age and level. Everyone gets questioned, everyone defends their moves, every single class. It's the closest thing to private coaching — at a fraction of the price.
One live class: tactics, strategy and open Q&A. The low-commitment way to see how the method works before you join a course.
A structured month — tactics, opening principles and endgames — with homework puzzles after every class so progress survives the week between sessions.
The full curriculum, plus analysis of your own games, personalized homework, and an honest progress report at the end. For students who mean it.
Groups are matched by age and level, so beginners learn with beginners and juniors are never mixed with adults. Booking two to four seats for siblings or friends makes the group privately yours.
A complete repertoire in one place: the Sicilian and Benko Gambit with Black, the English with White, and the Pirc as a universal weapon against both e4 and d4 — every line taught through its ideas, never blind memorization. It closes with five full middlegame analyses, because an opening is only as good as the plan it hands you on move fifteen.
View the course on Udemy ↗Each variation is explained the way I'd question you in a live session: what the move creates, what it abandons, and what plan it sets up. Built for beginners through tournament players — and used by other coaches as teaching material.
The most repeated comment across my reviews: students who arrive having memorized openings leave actually understanding them.
Families stay for months and years because juniors get structure without pressure — and parents get straight answers about progress.
Adult improvers stuck on a plateau report measurable gains once we rebuild their thinking around their own games.
Any level. I coach complete beginners learning how the pieces move, club players around 1000–1800, and tournament players preparing seriously. The trial assessment exists precisely so the plan starts from where you are.
Yes — weekly 60-minute classes capped at four students, matched by age and level, from $20 a seat. Book two to four seats for siblings or friends and the group is privately yours. One-on-one coaching is still available alongside the groups.
A stable internet connection and a free Chess.com or Lichess account. Lessons run over video call with a shared analysis board, so we both see and move the same pieces in real time. All time zones welcome — my students span four continents.
Yes — ages six and up, and three of my junior students have become national champions. Parents are welcome to sit in on every session, and you'll get honest progress reports rather than reassuring ones.
Honestly: it depends on your starting point and how much you practice between lessons. What I can promise is zero wasted study — the roadmap targets your specific recurring mistakes, not a generic syllabus, so every hour you put in moves the number that matters.
Start free: try the puzzle above, and the opening course's free preview lessons on Udemy. When you're ready for live coaching, that's booked through my Fiverr profile, where payment is held securely and packages — private and group — are listed. Either way, message me first with your rating and goals and I'll recommend where to begin before you spend anything.
Start free with the lesson above, learn at your own pace with the course, or work with me one-on-one — whatever fits. Tell me your rating and what's frustrating you, and I'll point you to the right first step.