fling wrote on 07/26/15 at 14:43:33:

Indeed - Heisman basically ascended to master a long time ago, and hasn't played anywhere since. And he's well known for giving online lessons of a very lazy character and doing exactly as you say. Realistically, he's probably around 1800 strength now. 

I have said this a few times, but I think part of having a coach (at least for me) is inspirational. As you say, you really need to do a ton of work on chess outside of the lessons to really improve. But having a coach, seeing how much stronger than you they are, hearing them analyze, them challenging you, etc, that should be inspiring. That should push you to want to work harder, and to see what's possible.

I've never really had a coach myself, but I have been one on and off for several years. I was very optimistic that I would simply have my students do what I myself did as an improver, but more efficiently and without some of the wrong turns. Essentially: Play a lot, analyze the games and be honest about your strengths and weaknesses at all times, practice with LOTS of tactics (from good sources), go through Reassess Your Chess from cover to cover once or twice, master basic endgames and attacking play, and learn some fairly main line openings (while I myself wasted too much time in my youth thinking I would be "original" and "surprising" in the opening).

This hasn't worked out that well. Most of my students were not able and willing to do much work on their own (they were mostly kids or teens). It seems they were expecting the actual improvement to happen during the lessons (which were largely spent analyzing their games, doing exercises to try to identify strengths and weaknesses, and building a basic repertoire), while I was expecting them to do the actual work outside of the lessons. Many students wouldn't even do the very simple task of inputing all their long-play games into a database, much less note down what they were thinking about during the game!

I think the key takeaway is the coach and the student should have a clear understanding of and mutual agreement on what each expects the other to do, what the goals are and how progress is to be assessed; and this should be open to revision if either (especially the student) feels things are not working out as well as hoped. And if the expectations don't match at all, go separate ways with no regrets. Did you try to really push Heisman or Lilov on this? Hopefully they would have no problem agreeing to this. Could even be a sort of written contract.

The other big issue is how personalized we should expect the training to be. There is a conflict here: Everybody is unique and wants to do things their own way, and there are lots of different things one could do and get at least some improvement, yet from a coach's perspective the road to expert and master strength is well-known and consists of many parts that most coaches would agree on (though the specific material used will vary, of course). Something like the "Steps Method" (from absolute beginner level) followed by Yusupov's 9-book course on Quality Chess plus some extra tactical exercise collections would be an example of such more or less universally recognized material that could take anyone a long way. So why should the coach bother to reinvent the wheel with each new student, when there is so much overlap in what they need to work on? Maybe the solution is to give the student a choice of materials, or even of what parts of the game to work on first, with the understanding that there are some bases that should eventually be covered by anyone expecting serious improvement. And similarly a choice of openings, but only between openings that have lasting value and are good for the student's long-term development. Again, these are things there should be a clear mutual understanding and agreement on.

I'd like to open a conversation about chess coaches from the student's perspective. 

My current goal is to become a stronger slow chess player. I'm not from a place with chess clubs, so I got to about 1600 ELO strength by playing as much as I could and generally studying chess in a very haphazard manner. Some book chapters here, some puzzles there, no real consistency in anything I did, partly because I had no idea what would help me. Last year I decided to hire a chess coach to learn how to improve and recognize my weaknesses. 

I enjoyed reading Dan Heisman's Novice Nooks, so I emailed him and set up weekly lessons with him at ICC. He is very professional and kind, and a good conversationalist. He analyzed my games and explained my mistakes, and his canned lessons were also very interesting. By far the best part of his lessons were about thought process and how to think in chess. He presented me with "even" positions and had me think out loud as I tried to find the best move. Although I don't think having a rigid thought process that works in most positions is a worthwhile or even possible goal, it was very valuable for a beginner like me to notice how I sometimes just rattled off moves in my head without  evaluating resulting positions, or missed alternative captures and zwischenzug's in my calculations.

However, after about a year, I cannot say I'm very satisfied. Dan uses engines as he analyzes my games, and I think I need to hear a master think through a position (at a slower pace, perhaps) so that my analysis and judgement improves as well. As far as assignments go, his suggestion of "4 Homeworks" (slow games, tactics, master games, and "other") is obviously good, but also maddeningly unspecific. I'm not expecting a step-by-step direction, as that is another impractical extreme, but there is so much chess stuff out there!

I have also taken a few lessons from Valeri Lilov. I liked him more; he doesn't use engines as far as I can tell, and focuses on explaining what he thinks about a position. But he too is very vague when it comes to how to work on my own. His advice is to divide each area I want to train into two distinct phases, theory and practice. For example, I can study endgame theory, and then I can play important endgame positions against an engine to gain a more practical understanding. That's fine advice, but also very generic and not in any way personalized. What types of endgames should I focus on? Any book suggestions? Should I play out all the variations, or simply try to have a general understanding of how to play these kinds of positions? When asked these questions his answer is essentially a shrug. His other suggestions also came off as designed to be used for all his students. If I want to become a strong player, should I play more ambitious openings? Playing easy to study openings is fine at 1700 since people go off book quickly anyway, but would it harm me in the future when I get stronger?

So I'm thinking about switching coaches, but I'm not sure what to look for in a coach anymore. Maybe it's too much to expect from someone to understand my current skill level from my games and tell me how to go about improving at it. Maybe the best I can expect is someone who can give me lessons more interactive than that I can find in books. 

No coach can make me improve; I must do the work myself. Yet I feel like I'm trying to reinvent the wheel here and making things very hard on myself. 

Any thoughts on what makes a good coach, or how you study chess? What were your experiences? Any specific suggestions for a coach that I can try?