Hi Fabi - this will be a pretty random comment but I always feel like saying this whenever I watch any interview with you: it's extremely pleasant to hear you speak - you have this calm elegance which I really appreciate. Not to mention you seem like a genuinely decent guy, which makes it that much easier to be happy for any of your successes! All the best always!
This is also truth what Fabi speak you dont need to calculate 20 moves you calculate 1 of 2 maybe 3 lines or 3 4 moves if you want to improve in chess you have to recognize what are critical moves
@@lovetownsend 2500 or any GMs are very strong, except for the top 30 players in the world.. so hes one of a handful of players that can say that. But being objective, any GM is really strong.
I’m a coach, I take on some private students but mainly I teach in schools. One thing I’ve learned with school groups in particular is that there’s really very little I can teach in the 45m- 1 hour per week I have them that will actually show any kind of meaningful improvement. They will only really retain a small fraction of what I teach anyway. Instead, the way I got some of those teams to win national finals is by fostering an environment with a good chess culture. If I can get them doing tactics on their own time, If I can get them playing with each other and loving the game then that is the only effective way to make them improve. Private students are a little different, there may actually be some specific pieces of knowledge or skills that I can pass on that might actually be used and retained. Yet even with individuals the most useful thing I can do as a coach is show them how they can teach themselves and point them in the right direction
AlphaZero: "These Super GMs just want to stop blundering their pieces." Stockfish: "Yeah, they just need to work on tactics. They don't really care about positional understanding and all that organic stuff... not until around 3350-3400 Classical ELO"
The weird thing about teaching of anything is that people perceptions are very much warped by how good the teacher/coach is at the thing and think it's just a linear improvement. The better the coach is the better my learning will be. The problem with that is that it's often not true and people paying Grandmasters to teach them how to get to 1500 is often a bad investment because an IM like Levy can do it better because they're better at communicating. When you change this to teaching educational subjects like Maths it becomes so much more obvious. There are Maths, Physics, etc, super geniuses who you wouldn't want to teach you because they don't have the communication skills or the empathetic skills to understand you as a student. We seem to forget this in Chess and video games.
very very good interview 👍😉Thank You. I have 3 students (Level 1000-1800) and I tell to them: Tactics and No blundering pieces after that we can analyse their games and in what they are good or bad and focus on that.Later: 1/3 openings 1/3 tactics and 1/3 endgames and strategy. But I think it is good as well to know the best games in history.
What actually helps people improve? Enjoying the suck. When you're bad, you need to ask yourself if you enjoy chess, because as you go from x00 rating to 1x00 rating, you will find that the improvement gets harder and the time/effort gets more demanding. If you didn't enjoy 900, you won't really enjoy 1800. If you are enjoying it and participating in groups, you will get a lot better. And once you get to 2x00, you will find it just gets worse, so don't focus on rating. Focus on enjoying what you are doing.
I feel like they talk a lot in this clip about coaching being expensive, but spend very little time talking actual numbers. When I was playing poker professionally in the late 2000s, coaching prices were insane! My midstakes coach (who himself was a midstakes player) was $450/hr, with a 90 min minimum. Most high stakes players were $1000+, with a handful of the top players being $2000/hr. I feel like chess is nowhere near that level, even to the $450/hr range. Also, in relative terms, there are actually a LOT of grandmasters (~2000), and then also all the players who are 2500+ online must be able to charge a premium for coaching as well.
There have been about 2000 grandmasters, but considering half of them got their titles 20+ years ago, how many of them are good coaches for a modern player? You also have to factor in that many (I'd guess a majority) of them don't speak English :p Coaching becomes expensive when its an hourly thing, especially if it comes at the cost of playing themselves and in poker, the best players make a lot more playing than they could coaching. In chess, that is very different. Unless you're a top 30 player, you're probably making more from chess by not playing yourself. And the best players are not necessarily the best coaches. RB Ramesh is probably the best coach of the past five years and is rated 2472. Also, the most successful coaches in chess aren't working for an hourly rate, but are either operating an academy or are employed by a federation or school system.
The poker ecosystem is completely different. When a player gets poker coaching they are expecting ultimately to get a return on investment. Whilst the hourly rate is very high it ultimately ends up being a few blinds. Increasing your bb/100 by 1 can pay off the high coaching rate many times over. Conversely in chess the $$ spent to increase your rating by 200 rating points is probably not going to pay for itself in a financial sense. The vast majority of chess players are paying for coaching for personal fulfilment rather than financial gain. Especially for high stakes pros 2k per hour is a couple of blinds. They might make close to that amount if they spend that time playing and it might even be the case that coaching other players will actually effect their bottom line by introducing more players into the pool.
Lol you are full of SH**. No way midstakes coach cahrge $450 an hour. NO WAY. Even back then you'd get quality coaches for $40-50 an hour EASILY. $450/h is what you would get for top heads-up coaches for example
yeah, there's a massive difference in chess and poker culture. poker is ultimately about making a profit. chess is mostly a hobby of love. @@loafes1352
Consistency is a big part of ratings most players like to try to have fun with the game aspiring to play beautifully even, but there are concrete do's and dont's if you wanna win more, and then there is freedom to just enjoy things as they are, zero aspirations, genuine contentment. ❤
There was a good question that didn't get answered. "What do you teach someone in a one hour lesson per week?" In between the tactics puzzles what's the best use of limited coach time?
I do tactics only. Started out at 1000, and dropped down fast to 800. I felt pretty useless. Decided to devote 6 months to only do tactics. I actually find it the most enjoyable part of all things I can do. The only downside - time flies by. I stagnated at 1950 FIDE equivalent tactics, and struggle to speed up my calculations. I can feel it on my daily form, how good/bad my solving will be. How to improve from here? My take is i need more patterns in higher rating under my belt, and it will work itself out.
I get it. I had lot's of coaches since I was a kid but my dad would pay anything in order for me to thrive. More than a decade later I wanted to give chess another chance by playing and raise my strenght. I had 3 lessons with the top player in my country and he was so kind not to charge me but if that wasan't the case, no way I could afford those with my wallet.
@@tr4nnel752 there are many 2600+ players that offer coaching, just look it up. Magnus has coaches for a different reason than 2550's seeking to improve their game.
not all 2550 players are alike, some people get there mostly on the prowess of their calculation, esp. young people who still have relatively big holes to their game
9:08 Fabi couldn't be more right. I'm around 1600 and even though I can calculate pretty well (I think), I can feel in my games what Fabi is talking about - I can't always find the critical moment when it is necessary until it's too late to defend the position. I can see literally everything when GothamChess explains that this is a critical moment, no matter which GMs are playing, but to see it when it comes to YOUR game is a totally different level. This (plus zero theory in openings and blunders, of course, got glimpses of 2000+ but blunders of 1000) stops me from reaching my potential.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:00 📊 *Coaching chess ranges from beginners to strong players, with varying goals and commitment levels.* 01:23 💰 *The cost of chess coaching can vary significantly based on the coach's qualifications and location, with prices ranging from $15 to $150 per hour.* 04:34 💡 *Knowledge of chess history and openings doesn't necessarily lead to significant improvement; tactics and not blundering pieces are crucial for most players.* 08:04 🔍 *A strong foundation in chess, the ability to calculate moves, and an understanding of when to calculate are key factors for improvement.* 11:33 🌐 *The internet has transformed chess coaching, with many resources available online, but maintaining motivation to practice is still a challenge.* 14:49 📈 *Chess kids today have access to more resources and can improve faster thanks to the internet.* Made with HARPA AI
2550 is a "decent player"? Give me a break. Anyhow, just to mention what is already known: Fabiano is incredible and one of the most standup players chess has ever seen.
I was able to beat my coach after a few months. He is a great middle school teacher though. A bit dubious to teach kiddos the Spanish first in my opinion.
If you are paying more than 20 bucks/hour, you are wasting money, bc chess is a bad investment. You can never get your money back and in 1h you are not going to learn much.
I pay 30 bucks /per hour. My coach has the IM title. Every lesson is prepared, I always get specific homework and my coach explicitly works with me on the stuff, that I woudn't work on on my own (in my case endgames). Tactics, playing and analyzing games, openings is the stuff tthat I do on my own anyway, so we don't waste time on that during the lessons. My coach knows I do this on my own anyway. It really depends how much the coach actually thinks about what you really need. There are good and bad coaches.
Everyone is born with an ELO Stamp on their forehead, progress beyond which is simply impossible. It could be 1500 or 2800. What will a coach do? At best get to your ELO peak faster and maintain it longer. That's it. Once you realize this, you can see that unless you are going to become a World Champion or a top 10 player, you are just throwing away money on coaching. You could study chess 20 hours of every day and if your peak rating is 1900 that's all you will be able to manage. It is truly remarkable when I realized this. Coaching is a scam.
Chess growth definitely is a logarithmic curve. When that curve starts to plateau is very much ingrained into a person after childhood, but it does not mean progress is impossible, just far too slow. Sad fact about this curve is it also curves downward with age. This is life, and this is all subjects and areas. With chess being so old and unchanging, we have many good tools to reach the plateau quicker. Find something dynamic and new, it will make climbing that curve take longer and be more rewarding! For me, I have started playing Fort Night with my Grandson.
What a losers attitude - not that I disagree about coaching. Most good players don't need coaches up to at least FM level. That said your Elo limitations are too timid. My dog can play at 1800. I believe everyone with enough grit and correct study and tournaments can reach a peak of 2200.
@@mwangikimani3970 You are wrong. I have played chess all my life with extensive OTB play. I have witnessed first hand people get the chess addiction, hire a coach, spend a lot money... Yes, they improve until they reach their peak.
Nothing triggers me harder in chess than people calling it a "sport". I really wish people would stop with that. "But you burn calories!" The human body burns calories at all times. Even when you sleep. Chess if a game, not a sport.
Is chess really a sport? Cmon folks, lets be real. sport [spôrt] NOUN an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.
