How I Started Coaching as an Untitled Patzer

Who am I?

Hi! I’m Anders and I’ve been an avid chess player for pretty much my whole life. My earliest chess-related memory was being invited to compete in a little tournament for pre-schoolers but being too afraid to enter! Fast forward about 10 years and I was one of the top 3 competitors in Sweden for my age group with a bedroom full of trophies from regional tournaments. I even got to represent my country in the Nordic Championship Team League for schools in Denmark.

Then I turned 18... Surprisingly there were more interesting things to pursue than chess at the time! Though I never stopped playing, I didn’t actively try to improve for at least another 10 years. Alas, my rating got stuck on the dreaded 1800 plateau.

Since getting back on the horse (or knight should I say), I’ve managed to improve significantly and I’ve recently been working hard on my game as an adult chess improver alongside fellow #chesspunks patzers improvers. With the recent pandemic-fueled chess boom bringing in new players eager to learn, I decided to pick up coaching again.

So, why am I coaching?

I don’t have a title. Why the hell am I coaching you may ask?
I enjoy sharing my knowledge and have always found it to be a rewarding experience to see others grow under my tutelage. With a natural proclivity towards mentoring, knowledge sharing is also a key aspect of my day job as a developer. I’ve even co-founded a meetup outside of work where people from all walks of life come and learn how to code.

I also think coaching is a great way to reinforce my own chess skills as an adult improver. After all, the best way to know if you deeply understand a topic is if you can easily and confidently explain it to someone else.

Getting paid to coach is just a bonus and reminds me of the modest tournament winnings I used to take home back in the day. Any money I earn from coaching is always reinvested back into chess, be it via cramming my already overflowing bookcase with more chess books than I can read or adding to my Chessable lines to review *welp*.

If you know, you know

I also have experience coaching kids in schools (10-11-year-olds). Before I moved to London, I used to tour primary schools in my hometown in Sweden. I would coach them from beginner level, right up until they were ready to compete in their first tournament – an annual tournament called Riksfinalen organised by my local club where up to 2,500 kids would compete.

The calm before the storm. Riksfinalen, June 2015

Am I really qualified?

If you look up coaches on lichess for example, I’m not even allowed to sign up there, because I don’t have an official FIDE title. I understand why it’s there as a vetting process but, in my opinion, it really isn’t necessary to have a title to teach beginners and intermediate players. Even some advanced players can benefit.

These days I coach players online (and in-person where possible) from beginner level right up to a few hundred rating points below my own level. For more advanced players seeking coaching, I’ll happily recommend more advanced coaches I admire.

The chess boom

Chess saw a massive boom from the beginning of the pandemic (which continues today) when outdoor activities and sports became impossible for a time. eBay recorded a 215% increase in chess set sales since March 2020 and the launch of the popular chess-themed Netflix show The Queens Gambit, helped to add fuel to the chess craze fire. With so many new players out there eager to learn, I was prompted to dip my toe in the chess-coaching world again.

Anya Taylor-Joy as Beth Harmon in The Queen’s Gambit

Online chess streamers like Agadmator, Hikaru Nakamura and Gotham Chess also rode the wave and took advantage of newbies looking to engage with chess content, massively upping their subscriber counts (with all of them surpassing the 1 million subscriber milestone).
I signed up to an online tutoring site called Superprof and before long I had committed to hosting three 90-minute coaching sessions per week and had to decline many more requests.

Software I use

I use the amazing lichess study feature during lessons. It allows the user to create a study with up to 64 chapters (games/PGNs) per study. The board position can be synchronised, I can switch on/off opening tree/tablebase, engine analysis and more.

I use Cochess for booking requests, reviews and it also handles payments via Stripe (with a 15% markup).
I make use of the calendar automation tool, Calendly to minimise the admin work for both me and my students. It means that students can book themselves a time that matches my availability in their own time zone and a Zoom link will be attached to the meeting.
Openingtree is great for getting the big picture of the students’ games and their openings.

A typical lesson with me

Typically, I ask for the student’s goals and ambitions and how much time they are able to dedicate to chess per week. This helps to create a long term road map. I mostly work with adult improvers who don’t have much time to spare.
Then I will give homework for the next lesson, usually to play games that we can analyse together – tactics, endgames, etc.

Questions? Comments?

Thank you for reading this far. Have you thought about coaching? Do you have a coach yourself? I would love to hear your story.