Dan Hronchek

I'm a 43 year old chess coach from Holland Michigan, USA. I have played chess around the world, but mostly stick to my home turf in the Midwest US. I love studying chess with others and thinking about chess pedagogy. In 2014, I wrote a chess text book so elementary teachers could put chess into their classrooms. Those resources are no longer publicly available. Send me a message if you'd like a copy.

I've recently played my 24,000th game on lichess.org! I've been frequenting online chess servers since 2002.. so I imagine the hours are significant. I've stopped keeping track. I've played in a few tournaments over the years with some strong finishes, and a few catastrophes. I won a medium sized event in Berlin Germany in 2007, which is probably my best tournament win.

I organized chess programs within the MCCSC, Bloomington IN 2003-2007, teaching roughly 500 students/semester at its peak. I wrote a chess manual to train teachers how to teach chess in 2014. I have taught online on lichess.org since 2017.

Best student results: Top adult student gained 1000 points from 1200-2200 over 4 years. In 2019, when I tracked this stat more closely, my online students averaged several hundred points of gain either while working with me, or on their own a few months after receiving instruction from me on how to progress. In 2024, my fastest gaining adult student is currently up 450 points Jan-Aug.

I was briefly part of the chess doctors - a small twitch broadcast that covered international tournaments and training lectures. I have a youtube channel here: www.youtube.com/@drhackchess

I am a flexible teacher. I love teaching the end game and working backwards toward meaning, but am happy teaching from the beginning of the game forward also. Both methods have proven successful for students here on lichess.org. As for the middle game, I prefer to analyze games with a home grown approach using a combination of logic and intuition. I can teach you how to piece together an evaluation of any position and have confidence in that evaluation.

I prefer to do a short consultation via phone/skype/other before we put together any lessons - send me an email or lichess message that includes a few times when we can talk or play a few games (dan.hronchek@gmail.com). Everything I do is tailored to the player, discovering together where the holes are in knowledge and psychology of chess.