IM Matthew Wadsworth

My name is Matthew Wadsworth. I am a 24 year old IM from the United Kingdom. I graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2021 and am currently pursuing chess full-time, working towards the Grandmaster title. I have 5 years of coaching experience, and have worked with a variety of students across ages, nationalities and playing strengths

I learnt to play chess when I was four years old, when my dad taught me the moves. After joining my local club in Maidenhead and playing several local tournaments, I moved up quite quickly to national age group tournaments. I was lucky enough to be picked for England to play at the 2007 World Youth Chess Championship, and have been privileged to play for my country many times at age group level. Two of my standout performances from my earlier years were finishing 5th in the under 12 World Youth Championship in 2012, and becoming under 18 British Champion in 2015.

The next step in my chess career was to push towards the FIDE titles. I crossed the 2300 barrier in 2016, which gained me the FM title. Soon after, I achieved my first IM norm, in the 2015/16 4NCL season. I spent the next couple of years on the hunt for my remaining IM norms, which I achieved at the 2017 Xtracon Open in Denmark and the 2018 Polar Capital Open in Jersey. I finally reached 2400 in May 2019, becoming an International Master a couple of months later. By this point, I was studying Economics at the University of Cambridge, which afforded me the opportunity to play in multiple Varsity Matches. In the 2019 edition of this match, I got to play the former Women's World Champion Hou Yifan and managed to draw with black, at that point my best single-game result.

After the 2022 British Championship, in which I finished 5th= with chances to place even higher, I decided to commit to chess full-time in the hopes of reaching GM. Since then, I have combined an active playing schedule (playing around 300 classical games in the last two years) with coaching, finding that the one has tended to benefit the other. Over the past two years, I have played tournaments in the UK, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Serbia, Iceland, Germany, Latvia, Albania and Hungary; my standout performances were winning the 2022 HIT Open in Nova Gorica, Slovenia and finishing 2nd= at the 2024 Reykjavik Open. I recently made my 2nd GM norm at the 2024 British Championships in Hull, and am hoping to get my third norm, and the title, soon!

My chess career so far would never have happened without the support of my parents, for which I am forever grateful. Moreover, my coaches throughout the years, principally Andrew Martin, Nick Pert and Glenn Flear, have been instrumental in showing me the path to chess improvement, as well as providing my excellent examples on which to model my own coaching.

I first started officially coaching in 2019, while a student at university. This took place online, and continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. I have gained significant experience since then, and currently have regular sessions with over a dozen students, across a massive range of both age and ability. The majority of my coaching still takes place online, although I am equally comfortable with in-person sessions. Whatever works best for the prospective student, I will make it my mission to ensure that I meet it.

I have been involved in academic mentoring at various points throughout my life, and have been able to see the parallels between learning both in school and over the chessboard. These parallels have only been strengthened by my time at university, in which self-discipline and independent study are paramount. More recently, I have had experience in chess commentary and writing multiple articles for the ECF ChessMoves magazine. In both cases, the importance of clearly conveying information is crucial, and I have been able to use this to great effect in my coaching.

There are parts of my opening repertoire that I have been playing for almost 15 years and would consider myself an expert in, for example the English Opening with White and the French Defence with Black. Over the last few years, my repertoire has broadened considerably, and I will be able to offer expertise no matter your opening repertoire. Coaches often emphasise the importance of opening play, but I believe that the greater gains are to be found in other areas. I would regard calculation as the single most important skill to develop for any aspiring player to develop. A good calculation process benefits your play in all stages of the game, from early in the opening to technical, late-stage endgames.

I have generally kept to a schedule of weekly, 1-hour lessons with my students, although this can obviously vary and depends on the needs of the student. For each lesson, having a clear theme and lesson objective is key in order to maximise the effectiveness of the sessions. For each student, I will propose a few goals to achieve over a 1-2 month timeframe during our sessions. These goals are tailored to the student and will depend both on what the student wants, as well as what I feel are the most important areas to improve. Every couple of months, we will assess our progress and propose a new set of goals to work towards.