Chess Students

Welcome to Chess Lessons!

Congratulations! By now you’ve decided on the time and days for your lessons. Part of any successful journey is being prepared.

Tournament Board & Pieces w/ portable bag
Chess Clock – Recommended Basic digital chess clock $30 (optional for 1st year students, required for students with at least a years experience)
3 Ring Binder w/ dividers label sections – My games, Tactics, Endgame, Openings & Hero’s Games, Questions (Tech savvy students can set these documents up online through shared google docs)
Comprehensive Chess Course Volume I & Volume II:
(players with ratings 1200 or higher should wait for teacher recommendations)
Silman’s Complete Endgame Course – This is crucial for all students
Choose a Chess Hero (maybe Vishy Anand the current World Champion, Garry Kasparov, Susan Polgar, Mikhail Tal an amazing attacker, or Bobby Fisher) and get a book of their best games to read for fun & for lessons.

Daily practice for 30 minutes to 1 hour focusing on chess vision, tactics, endgames & other assigned work
Keep a log of practice work completed
Keep track of questions – Feel free to email me questions before lessons. I prepare for lessons in advance and this is the best way for me to answer your questions
Come to lessons 10 minutes early to set up your board and be ready to focus for lessons

The Benefits of Chess
What is the Suzuki Method? – The way I teach chess has been heavily influenced by the Suzuki Method of teaching music.
For an intro to chess for adults I recommend Yasser Seirawan’s Series Play Winning Chess

ChessBase.com – Best free chess news site
Chess.com – Great chess site for playing online and practicing (My user name is Sarterus feel free to friend me)
Susan Polgar’s Blog – World class chess player with a great blog that includes daily puzzles