FM Zachary Dukic

Hello everyone, and welcome to my coaching profile! My name is Zachary Dukic, I am a 25 year-old Canadian FIDE Master with one IM norm living in the nation's capital, Ottawa. I speak English and French fluently as well as Italian at a fairly proficient level. My two biggest passions in life are chess and teaching, and so it's only natural that I combine the two! My peak FIDE rating is 2275 and my peak CFC (Canadian rating) is 2423. Apart from teaching chess, I also enjoy playing soccer, biking, and of course, studying chess! I am constantly seeking to be the best possible chess player I can be, and it would be a privilege to pass this knowledge and passion on to you!

I have played in many tournaments throughout the years, but here are best ones that hold a special place in my memory:

1) Sunway Sitges International Chess Festival 2021: I scored 6/10, taking down 1 WGM, 1 FM, 2 IMs and 1 GM along the way. I was awarded my first International Master norm for this performance. It is my greatest achievement to date.

2) Canada Zonal 2022 (Canadian Championship) : Despite a nightmare 0/2 start, I was able to storm back with 6/7, scoring wins against IMs Michael Barron and Mark Plotkin and GM Bator Sambuev, followed by a draw against IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux to secure a 6/9 score and the FM title.

3) Canada Zonal 2019 (Canadian Championship): I scored 5.5/9 (Tied 5th), defeating GM Kaiqi Yang, IM Olivier Kenta Chiku-Ratté, FM Richard Chen as well as other masters.

4) Chicago Open 2019: I defeated my highest rated opponent to date, GM Boris Avrukh, former top 100 player, esteemed author and chess content creator.

5) Charlotte Summer IM Norm Invitational: I scored 6/9 (Tied 3rd). In this tournament I beat several strong international masters such as IMs Sahil Sinha and IM Martin Lokander. I unfortunately drew my last game, which I needed to win in order to obtain an IM norm myself.

GM kill count: 8

GM Boris Avrukh (ISR)
GM Kaiqi Yang (CAN)
GM Ruslan Pogorelov (UKR)
GM Bator Sambuev (CAN)
GM Joshua Sheng (USA)
GM Oliver Barbosa (PHI)
GM Magesh Panchanathan (IND)
GM Dimitri Komarov (UKR)

Apart from 7+ years of teaching chess both in classrooms and privately, I also have degrees in Second Language Teaching (BA) and Education (B.Ed) from the University of Ottawa. I am extremely passionate about teaching and I try to accommodate students to the best of my ability. I have taught students ranging from complete beginner to 2200 strength (CFC).

One of my strongest students, Johnathan, came to me with a rating of 1700 at the end of 2017, and in 2 short years had risen to a rating of 2200 CFC, collecting a National Championship title in the u12 category and several wins against masters along the way. Many of my other students have their own success stories as they continue the climb towards chess mastery.

As mentioned earlier, I have degrees in Second Language Teaching and Education. I specialize specifically in FSL (French as a Second Language) and have acquired extensive experience over the last 5 years instructing children and adults in French both privately and in classrooms. Additionally, for the past year I have been teaching a Saturday Italian Class for young second and third generation Italians in Ottawa seeking to communicate with their relatives. It has been a truly enriching experience, as I, too, am a third generation Italian who learned Italian in order to reopen the line of communication between my family in Canada and my relatives in Italy.

I enjoy playing theoretical, tactical and attacking chess. My openings reflect this playing style, which include the Open Sicilian and the King's Indian Defense, both of which I have been playing for many years and played a big role in allowing me to score the aforementioned wins.

In teaching, my strength lies in assessing a student's weaknesses and engaging the student fully in the lesson so these weaknesses can be challenged head-on. I take into consideration students' personal lives when determining a personalized study plan that allows my students to maximise their productivity between lessons.

I teach students through Discord, Skype, Zoom, WeChat, while using Lichess studies in order to explore different concepts. Instead of analysing student games in their entirety, I will often pick and choose specific positions that arise in games that are relevant to the content discussed during lessons. I feel that this is important, as it is much easier for students to grasp their mistakes once they have a background about why it's a mistake, rather than saying "this is a mistake, that's a mistake, this here is a mistake, blah blah blah".

I am not saying that other parts of the game should be ignored, on the contrary. I ask students to play rapid games every day, and to annotate every single game they play before moving on to the next one. These annotations, while typically not exhaustive, will give students an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the mistakes made and provide much needed closure before moving on to the next game. It will also be indicative of how a student is progressing, and if mistakes are being repeated.