Frequently Asked Questions

Do you normally make a plan for the development of given a chess player?

We prepare a complete unique program of training and preparation for each of my students. It is based on the creative works of the Russian chess school.

Is it possible for me to become a strong chess player (FM, IM or GM), and if yes, how much time will it take?

Each and every chess player has the potential needed to become an FM, IM, or even a GM! We can provide you the best approach and teach you so that you improve quickly, but everything else depends only on you. If you want to succeed, you will always have to apply a strong will and willingness to work hard. We can help you progress in your chess development lightening fast, but don't forget that I am just a coach, who can guide you the way to success and lead you through it. You should never forget that the way to chess mastery is not an easy one and you will have to work a lot if you really want to get there.

How do you work on improving the endgame technique of a player?

Firstly, you need to know that acquiring strong endgame technique is not easy. Most chess players can play their endgames with reasonable success, but only few can play skillfully and benefit from any minor mistake their opponent will most likely make which will decide the outcome of the game. For this reason, unlike the opening and the middle game, the endgame needs a specific approach of evaluating and learning. For most endgame positions which arise in modern practical chess, the plan one will choose is a decisive strategic intention in each game. Plans may seem very easy to prepare, but this usually happens to be the most important stage in each endgame position, since almost always the fate of the whole game depends on it. So if you would like to expand your endgame knowledge, you need to take serious preparatory studies in this direction.

How do you study chess openings, what methods do you use and recommend for memorizing them for a long time?

The process of studying an opening line or system is not difficult. Nevertheless, you need to know a few important things before you begin studying the opening theory. Actually, mastering chess openings may look easy to do by just looking through the moves one by one and remembering them in the right order. Yet, here we have to warn you that studying the openings is a very important stage of every player's preparation, and if you don't know the right way of doing that, it may seriously affect your performance. First of all, when you learn openings, you should not try to memorize the moves mechanically, one by one, but to understand the sense of each move and to remember the basic points and ideas of the specific opening structure, because that way you will be able to truly learn it, that is, remember it for a long time. Know that it is absolutely forbidden to memorize the opening lines move by move, mechanically. This is a principle for studying chess theory and here is the place I should quote the great chess master of the past - Aaron Nimzowitsch who said: "Try to get rid of the slavery under opening variations. Instead, learn a few typical positions and study them thoroughly. Positional sense should free you from the slavery of 'variations".

How do you work on creating a suitable opening line for a particular student?

Before we answer to this question we would like to mention that in our library we have a great number of chess books, databases, and many more. There are really a lot of materials to look at. It is certainly inconceivable for me to read and explore all of this stuff, but when we explore or study some book or opening system, my purpose is not to read all the stuff inside, but to extract only the most important information from it. When we proceed in this way, it is really very easy for us to read a lot of materials and remember only the most essential information we will easily recall at the right moment while playing in a chess tournament. That way, we keep in mind the lines and ideas from the most interesting and exciting games in our databases for a long time, so that they often help us defeat our opponents, using similar ideas as those we have observed in the games. Then we deeply analyze the lines we have found in my databases and to make sure that they will be compatible with the playing style of a given student. Furthermore, different opening lines need to be explored and prepared in different ways before including them in one's opening repertoire and starting using them in real competitions. Therefore, when we begin working on a given opening line or system for one of our students, we free our positional sense to be able to see and feel what the peculiarities of the line are and also to correctly anticipate the arising middlegame positions after the different variations. This is the way we work on creating a suitable opening line or system for a particular student.

How do we train a student online?

Using skype and chessbase software we train the student online. Online lessons are more effective since one can record those lessons over the screen and replay them whenever they wanted to.