GM Max Illingworth

Hey there, chess friend!

I am Grandmaster Max Illingworth, here to help you become a much stronger chess player, win many more chess games, and increase your rating by 100+ points!

I'm qualified as a Certified High-Performance Coach and a FIDE Trainer, and I've spent over 10,000 hours coaching students from my home in Australia.

I'm now looking for 10 private students from Australia who are rated below 1600 Elo. (This translates to about 1900 Lichess blitz, or 2000 Lichess rapid/classical). Once these 10 spots are filled, I won't be accepting any further students.

I'm looking for students with the following qualities:

- Passionate about chess;
- Attentive during lessons;
- Enjoyable to coach

On my end, I'll help you to improve your thinking process for your chess games as quickly and effectively as possible, so that you can rapidly improve your play, and subsequently, your chess rating.

I believe it's possible for anyone to get from 0 to a 1600+ level within 12 months with the right help and effort, and I would be thrilled to accelerate your journey to this level and beyond!

You can enjoy a free sample of my coaching in my course 'How To Win At Chess': members.illingworthchessacademy.com/offers/HsoEF58h

- Grandmaster (earned the title in December 2015, awarded in 2016)
- I was a member of the gold-medal-winning Australia team at the 2020 Asian Online Nations Cup. I also won a bronze medal for my individual board performance.
- Playing chess for 20 years. I still remember the challenges I overcame in getting past each rating range!
- 4-time representative for Australia at the World Chess Olympiad.
- Won the 2011 and 2014 First Saturday, September GM tournaments (first two GM norms)
- 2014 Australian Chess Champion
- Won the 2014 Greg Hjorth Memorial with 9/9
- 2015 Oceania Zonal winner (represented Oceania in the FIDE World Cup)
- Winner of many Australian weekend tournaments
- Many-time NSW State Champion
- Many-time NSW Open winner
- 2017 Australian Open winner
- 2018 Australian Championship winner (with 10/11, an equal-best all-time score)
- All-time third-highest ACF rating by an Australian (2690)

I am now retired from playing chess tournaments, although I did recently win the 2022 Huon Valley Chess Festival Blitz Tournament, with a score of 7.5/9 (ahead of 3 other GMs).

My peak online ratings are around 2950ish blitz on Chess.com, 3000ish bullet on Lichess, and 3050ish bullet on Chess.com. (I don't play online chess anymore, except for the occasional crazyhouse session).

My journey helping others with their chess began when I was nine years old. I was coaching my friends and teammates at school, helping them learn from their games so that we could win the Primary School Competitions in our district!

My mother and grandfather were both coaches as well (in their case, in horse riding), which makes me a third-generation coach :)

I've always greatly enjoyed helping others with their chess, and I spent countless hours helping fellow students at my school, and other chess players on online chess forums, through my teenage years, before I discontinued university in 2012 to become a chess professional.

I take great pride in the over 10,000 hours I have spent helping other chess players improve their chess (mostly through coaching), as this deliberate practice indicates great mastery in my field (as explained in Malcolm Gladwell's famous work 'Outliers').

The best teachers are also students, and I'm continually learning new things - as reflected by my reading over 1000 books (the vast majority on chess) in my lifetime. I continually work on myself and evolve my teaching methods in my chess courses and memberships.

I've worked with players of all levels - from beginners to Grandmasters, and everything in between - and this gives me a unique understanding of the challenges and problems players face at each level in improving their chess. I've proven that I can work effectively with any level of player and show them how to improve their chess as rapidly as possible. I also remember what it was like for me on each step of my chess journey - the struggles I faced at each rating range, and how I ultimately broke through the barriers to get to the next level.

I have coached many Australian Junior Chess Championship title winners, and many of my students have been on the 'Most Improved Player' lists on national and junior ratings. Indeed, I am extremely proud of the great results of my students in the 2019 Australian Junior Chess Championship, where three of my students won National titles.

I continue to be an active coach, as I ran a group training program (that brought in $80K in the first 3 months) in 2022, and also coached many juniors in New South Wales for the 2023 Australian Junior Championship, as the head coach of the NSWJCL.

Now, I've taken my unique methods for helping students quickly improve their results and reach a high quality of play and systemized my training methods to reliably get players to a 1600+ level as quickly as their time and effort permits.

I have experienced quite a lot in the first 28 years of my life. Through chess, I have travelled to over 30 countries, and currently live in Rach Gia, Vietnam with my wife and her family. Living in a new country has broadened my horizons and given me the freedom to fully pursue my dreams of helping thousands of chess players play better chess.

Now, you can finally see real results from all the time, energy and effort you've been putting into your chess.

In the chess world, I wrote for many well known periodicals (such as New In Chess, ChessPublishing and ChessBase Magazine) for many years. I even wrote my first book (Dismantling The Sicilian, 2017 update) before going my own way and self-publishing my own articles, books, video courses and memberships. I have published 15 video courses so far, and released a membership service in 2020 (now called 'The Chess Improvement System 2.0) and more recently, a group coaching program.

I continue to learn more about how to be an even better trainer, as shown by the many training events I've attended - from the 2018 Quality Chess Academy Training Camp led by GM Jacob Aagaard, to three Certified High Performance Coaching training events (two of them online). I've incorporated many of the lessons I've learned from these trainers, and from world-class business influencers, to innovate in the chess improvement industry and create a memorable learning experience for my students, and from there, fast improvement for those who implement what they learn from me.

Nowadays, I have a lot of other passions outside of chess - such as entrepreneurship, coaching, self-development, writing, finances, marketing, reading, gaming, food, TV competitions (especially Survivor), psychology, humour, movies, social media and constantly learning new things.

At the same time, not all of my experiences have been positive - and my struggles have played a greater role in shaping who I am today, and the skills I've developed to overcome adversity.

In my youth, I overcame early learning difficulties, being inappropriately touched multiple times as a child, my father having a mental breakdown and subsequent depression for 17 years, several physical ailments, my mother progressively losing her vision since I was 16, and on-and-off depression from the age of 12 to my mid-20s.

However, I pushed through these challenges, and the geographic isolation of Australia from the rest of the chess world, to nonetheless became a Grandmaster and entrepreneur, living life on my own terms.

I share this because it proves that becoming a chess master or champion comes down to how committed you are to your dream, rather than external or innate factors. You always have the power of choosing whether you will let your reasons or excuses stop you from improving, versus trying your very best and making chess improvement an absolute must for you.

In the last year, I have become most passionate of all about poker. The process of improving my skill at poker from scratch, as well as continually improving my mindset to deal with the inevitable setbacks in the game, has helped me become a much better coach. Specifically, by making me much better understand the process of learning that a beginner or less experienced player goes through in their improvement journey. And also, understanding where different psychological obstacles come from, and how to most effectively deal with them (both in playing and in training).

My most unique advantage as a trainer is that I'm the only chess Grandmaster certified as a High-Performance Coach by the High-Performance Institute - the most prestigious coaching certification in the world. What this means is that I have a unique ability to ask exactly the right coaching questions that allow my students to find the best answer for themselves, leveraging both my coaching ability and my student's deep knowledge of themselves and their situation.

Naturally, as a chess Grandmaster, I have great skill in all facets of chess, but unlike many other Grandmasters, I am able to clearly explain the key moves and ideas in any position in a natural, engaging style that players of any level can understand. I've talked with thousands of other chess players of a wide range of levels in Facebook chess groups, online forums, and in private messages over the years. This gives me a profound understanding of the typical challenges chess players of different levels face. I also know the steps to overcome these struggles.

What else makes me a great trainer?

- I'm deeply passionate about helping other chess players;
- I'm a strong listener;
- I push and challenge my students to achieve their full potential;
- I keep my students accountable and on track to achieve their goals;
- I created a 'mastermind' system where my students learn from each other, as well as from me;
- I've organized my extensive library of chess material into themes within a curriculum so that you can improve any part of your chess at any time;
- I care about my students, celebrating their wins and coaching them through their struggles, using my support system.
- I'm a very good storyteller, which helps my students to remember and apply key lessons and ideas easily.
- I am continually improving my own coaching and teaching skills with frequent practice, study, and attending online training events.
- I regularly learn new skills with the goal of mastering them as quickly as possible, meaning I understand what it's like to be relatively new or inexperienced at something, as well as how to improve very rapidly in the early stages of one's journey toward mastery.

In my private coaching (one-on-one), I primarily focus on teaching you better thinking techniques through a Socratic method (asking questions and giving feedback on their answers), so that you can make better decisions in their games and thus, quickly boost your ratings. This also includes showing you how to make the most of your chess practice time, including assigned homework and chess material.

In my extensive experience coaching privately, I noticed that nearly all my students had the same 3-5 weaknesses and would ask me one of about 5 different chess questions. However, the answers may vary somewhat between students. You may have a different rating, different goals, different learning style, and a different amount of time for studying chess, and with my experience, I can share with you the answers that are right for your situation, and make the process of improving your chess not only a lot faster, but also much easier and more enjoyable.

I believe that you learn best when you are having fun, so I strive to make lessons enjoyable as well as instructive. I encourage you to both answer my questions, and ask questions of your own during the lessons so that you can master different aspects of your game more quickly, and enjoy faster results from our work together.