NM Theodore Slade

I am Life Master Theo Slade and I am from England but I moved to Orlando, Florida in 2015 and have been living here ever since.

I have played over 100 USCF rated tournaments. I have played twelve classical tournament games against Grandmasters, drawing two, as White against Julio Becerra Rivero (2583), and as Black against Sandro Pozo Vera (2432). I have also defeated an International Master with Black, Nelson Gamboa (2495).

I have played chess in thirteen different countries, including China for the World U16 Olympiad. I was England's top scorer as an U12. I am also very proud to say that I have captained my country in an international tournament to victory!

I have been teaching for four years. In 2017 I worked with a very ambitious, engaged student who I got on really well with and within just five weeks he increased from 1328 to 1425. It was a lot of fun working with him and I was delighted to see his success!

I run a chess club where I teach up to sixteen people at once, and I also help them as they are playing friendly games. I have also lectured about my chess career, showing my best games. Additionally, I have been writing a monthly column for the British Chess Magazine since I was 12; I am the youngest ever writer for the world's oldest chess journal!

I am a positional player, particularly strong in theoretical positions and strategic endgames. Therefore I can help you best in these areas. I am best at explaining in detail abstract concepts, and I think these are especially valuable because they can be applied in many situations.

I ask my students to send me their recent games before our first lesson and I always analyze all of them to find their strengths and weaknesses. We always go through them even if the student has already analyzed them with an engine since often I can see weaknesses in the student's game that they themselves cannot see. If there are no student games to analyze, I like showing my games, not because they are the best example, but because I am most familiar with my thought process so I can easily explain why I made all my moves, but I can only speculate with regard to other players. After the lesson, I always email my students a PGN of what we discussed.