IM Ihor Nester

I am IM Nester Ihor, I am from Ukraine, and chess is my profession. I was an active offline over-the-board chess player before 2020, presently chess coach is my main occupation. I am open for lessons in 2023

In recent years (except 2020-23) I was an active chess professional and played around 150 classic games a year. Typically I won around 7-8 tournaments a year, and as a rule, I was among the winners in the rest of them. My recent best achievement was winning the Romanian Open Championship in 2018 in Alba Julia. I usually participate in swiss classic tournaments around Europe, most often in Germany, Romania, Poland, sometimes Italy, France, Switzerland, and other countries. I like strategy, I prefer to think, plan on the basis of understanding positions. That's why my main activity is classic tournaments.

I have a certificate in the specialty "Chess coach" at Lviv University of Sports.
I worked for 5 years as a chess coach at Vasyl Ivanchuk chess school.
Total working experience as a chess coach at chess schools is 7 years.
Besides, I also have private online students.

I speak well enough a couple of languages.
Ukrainian and Russian are native level, English and Polish advanced. Can also try French if you want to try. It`s not advanced but I am learning it. Je peux aussi essayer le français. Ce n'est pas un niveau avancé, mais je l'apprends.

What is my chess specialty? What I can teach you best?
Openings:
for white closed openings
- Catalan, English, and other openings (Kings Indian, Queens-Indian, etc), where white can successfully
play Bg2 fianchetto.
- We can also look at alternatives to fianchetto in some openings like Dutch, Maroczy, some English variations, etc.

For black
- if 1.e4, then 1...e5 and either closed Rui Lopez, or the majority of other possible positions - Italian, 2
knights, Vienna, Scotch, and others.
- If the 1-st move not e4, then several concepts possible: Dutch and different Dutch-like variations, Hedgehog, queen's gambit accepted

Besides openings we can also work on:
- endgames, endgame plans, and techniques
- middlegame strategy, typical positions

Besides, we can analyze your games, point out mistakes, weak sides, and make up a strategy for your development.

Usually, I use interactive studies on lichess for the lessons, which contain mainly practical positional puzzles for solving and discussion, also theoretical studies on openings and endgames. I have my study materials well-grouped there, it is a good instrument for training. We can also work in any screen demonstration app. Teams, zoom are examples of such apps. Also games analysis, work on openings, also training of technical endgames, we can play some positions. Usually my lessons are interactive, we discuss a lot, I ask questions and discuss possible answers with the student. Also student receives homework, it can be puzzles in the lichess studies.