Recently I have felt compelled to consider what the properties of the ideal chess trainer should be. Obviously there are a few different types of chess trainers, each with their own function. Let’s have a look at them:
a) the junior trainer
This starts with teaching children the rules, notation and so on, then goes on to teaching them basic strategic concepts, such as development, king safety, the value of the pieces.
The junior trainer will often go through games with a group of children, discussing ideas, telling them when to look out for simple opportunities and so on.
The junior trainer will in most cases be a much stronger player than the children, even though he might not appear to the readers of this blog to be a very strong player. After decades in this game we tend to forget how difficult it was to understand even the most basic things in the beginning.
In my opinion, the junior trainer’s two most important tasks are to keep the juniors interested and to guide them towards good training material when they are ready. But in the beginning, the best training material is probably playing lots of games. The difficult thing is to understand when the juniors are ready for more.
b) the talent trainer
In this phase of the talent’s development the trainer is likely to still be a stronger player, at least for a part of the process. He is able to show the talent a lot of ideas and typical patterns, structures, combinations and so on. At the same time he will also be able to help the talent prepare for games, analyse his games with him and choose what books he needs to read, which types of exercises he should solve and so on.
This is the standard trainer you can find online.
c) the second
Once a player reaches a certain level he will start to play in tense competitive situations. This can be national championships, international championships or even matches.
I think most players over 2400 would benefit a lot from a second, but with the low amount of money in prizes at “normal” tournaments, only players at the top or participants in junior championships usually have access to a second.
Personally I have not played many tournaments since 2007 without a second. In only a few cases my second (for the last few years Nikos Ntirlis) has not been at the location with me, but assisted me over Skype from Greece.
The two jobs of a second are:
c1) to help the player choose a good opening and come up with some concrete suggestions and advice in that direction.
c2) to be on the player’s side. This is usually not fully understood by most people. Since we are flock animals, trying to do something on your own is usually doomed to fail. The only reason this works in chess tournaments is because everyone is doing it like this! In 2007 I won the British Championship (one shot – one kill) and no doubt benefitted greatly from John Shaw’s advice over the phone, especially for game five (against Nick Pert), and for Brian McClement serving dinner in the caravan for his son and me.
d) the grandmaster trainer
The final category is the one I have moved into over the last decade, by natural progression.
Read more…
Recent Comments