IM Dragos Ceres

I am Dragos Ceres, 19 years old, professional chess player, born in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova.
The world of chess is the one where I express all my ambitions and talents, trying to become a better player day by day.

I started playing chess since I was 7 years old, won my first National Youth Championship U8 a year later in 2012.
Won multiple National Youth Championships, and in 2022 I won for the first time the National Chess Championship.
I have played many European and World Youth Chess Championships, 1 European Individual Chess Championship and The 44th Chess Olympiad where I scored my best result so far, a GM norm and Moldova sky-rocketting to the 6th place in a very strong field of teams.
I have become a FM at the age of 14, placing me in the Top 10 European Juniors Ranking at that time in 2018.
I have become an IM at the age of 17 and so far I have earned 2 Grand Master Norms.

The teaching experience I have is still at an early stage as I started roughly 5 months ago, but I enjoy it a lot and my students are satisfied with the work we do together, as they are learning new and instructive things.

To boost your skills in chess, I believe one of the most important thing is learning how to correctly make decisions, as during the all 3 parts of the game this is the deciding factor, that's why I focus a lot on the positional understanding and endgame knowledge, as I consider it the key to making a decision; of course, also calculation and dynamical understanding is important, and I also focus on that aspect of the game.

My teaching methodology really depends on the student, as I am comfortable with teaching any part of the game (opening theory, middlegame strategies, endgame knowledge), so my first lesson is usually getting to know the player and the student and understanding which part of the game he wants to improve, and for the next 3-5 lessons I focus mainly on that, and after it, we usually continue with other aspects. During a lesson, I will always explain what is happening on the board in a simple way, and try to show my student the way I am thinking and how I am making a decision. Also, during the strategies lessons, I use a lot of instructive books, f.e. the books of J. Aagaard or M.Dvoretsky, as they are the ones that made me improve 3-4 years ago.