$75 / one-hour lesson
$600 / 10 one-hour lessons
$37.50 / 30-minute lesson
About Me
I played my first chess tournament two days before my thirteenth birthday and got a starting rating of 571 USCF. I quickly fell in love with tournament chess and after a year of hard work, a few days before I turned fourteen, I achieved a USCF rating over 1700 USCF and won the K-8 Missouri State Championship. I became an expert at the age of 15 and achieved the National Master title at the age of 17, four years after I started playing tournament chess.
Specialties
I've been teaching chess for over a decade. My specialty is explaining the way I think about chess and breaking chess down into its fundamental components for tournament-level players.
Good Student Match:
I enjoy working with experienced tournament-level players (1600+) trying to get higher levels of competitive chess. I don't want to take full credit for my student's successes because their hard work contributed to most of their success, but I've had several students go from 17xx USCF to 21xx USCF and I'd like to think I had at least some small part in their chess improvement. :)
Playing Experience:
- Saint Louis Chess Club Co-Champion with Grandmaster Denes Boros (2022)
- Two-time Missouri State Champion
- Two Time Missouri Master/Expert Champion
- Tied for first in the 2023 Bill Wright Saint Louis Open
- Tied for first in the 2023 Midwest Class Championship
- My best tournament so far was the 2023 Spice Cup Open scoring 5/9 with a USCF tournament performance rating of 2561 and a FIDE performance of 2473.
Teaching Method:
I have a very hands-on approach to teaching chess. Here's a list of exercises I do with my students:
- I play games with my students where I explain my thought process before playing a move and ask them to do the same. The purpose of this exercise is to convey the way I think about chess while also helping me understand the way my students think about chess.
- I also play training games where anytime my student thinks their position is losing we switch sides. The goal is to beat me with as few switches as possible. The point of this is to teach technique. I'm not going to give up easily, and neither will your opponents.
- Last but not least, I play training games with my students from any starting position they want with an in-depth post-game analysis.
Other Resources:
