First thing first, I like to take the time to get to know my student. Since I'm working on a solid long-term comprehension and progression, I want to know who you are and what brings you here. We all have different paths and I need to understand your story to help you the best I can. So I will usually ask you some questions or even call you to get your background.
Also, I'm gonna ask you to send me your most interesting games so that I can better understand your "chess personality".
Although I must say nowadays a deep dive into your
Lichess.org or
Chess.com profile gives me a lot of useful informations. And if you allow me to access your "Chess insights"...
Overall, I would say I have a rather classical method of teaching.
The lesson is usually split in two parts :
- I will first come back on some interesting moments that happened in your 10, 15 last games (better in rapid than blitz for obvious reasons). My main objective here is to spot bad habits (recurring motives), and to cut it at its roots. It's also a good way to do some easy and fast opening improvement for more advanced players.
- Then it's time for the fundamentals learning (tactical tools, checkmate patterns, strategy, and endgame).
As I always do a review of the most interesting online moments you will have from a week to another, I tend to come back on every OTB game my student would play, so you are kindly (to say the least) encouraged to create a study with all the OTB games you would play !
And obviously, everything we work on together, I will put it online via the lichess studies.
There is no magic formula. Strong fondations first, if you wanna go further !