coach

A coach for anyone who can afford one and wants to improve. There is a big difference between stockfish telling you why a move is wrong and having someone who can explain to you where you went wrong and show you the correct plans etc. I have got coaching and given lessons over the years and definitely see the value. Time is important to most people and you will improve much faster with a coach than without.

I do agree tho that a coach should be used when you are actively working on your chess eg 1 hour lesson with a coach + 5+ hours work yourself.

Looks like GM Wesley So has recently hired a very good coach!
Also, GM Fabiano Caruana had a very good coach in 2014 and decided to continue on his own from 2015 and onward.

It doesnt depend if you are average or not. If you really want to improve and you can afford a coach, get one. you may not need one for a while, but you will make faster progress if you have one.

@Iceman1point1 #24
There are several drawbacks with only working with a chess engine for your chess improvement.
The chess engine can only talk variations, and cannot give you human chess explanations.
That also means that a chess engine cannot teach you "simple chess" as a chess engine will usually go for the highest evaluation score.
Where a human master would simplify a position, and go for a totally won pawn endgame, the chess engine will continue playing in a complex position where it is just one pawn, and will have to defend for some time with "crazy" defensive moves.
That is not practical human chess, and it will be bad for your chess development if you continue to thoughtlessly only follow chess engine hints.
It is, for a human being, usually much easier and less tiring to play moves that you understand, rather than be calculating the whole time.

Some time ago I attended a training with GM Matthew Sadler.
He said that for one tournament (Where he play against Kramnik amongst others) he prepared by going over the games of former world champion Capablanca. From those games Sadler learned a thing or two, and applied that in his games, and got a great tournament result !

It is better to use a chess engine to check for tactical mistakes in your games, and not much more.
Creative chess players, like GM Jobava, and IM Manuel Bosboom, do not use chess engines very much at all to prepare their chess game.

If you read the interview with GM Jobava, you will see that the winning opening novelty against GM Bareev was not the "computer's best choice".

CB News - Living life the Jobi way (1/2)
en.chessbase.com/post/living-life-the-jobi-way-1-2
CB News - Living life the Jobi way (2/2)
en.chessbase.com/post/living-life-the-jobi-way-2-2

@achja, often one talks about "typical comp-moves" because such kind of moves are unlikely for a human to find. It's often moves including very deep tactics. For example if you can capture a piece you might chose to not do that and instead treat another piece.

Another example is if you have a double threat, you can instead of taking one of the pieces make a complete other move and letting the double-treat persist.

If you learn to also find and consider such typical comp-moves, is it possible to improve your playing?

@achja should be added to the roster of coaches!

but he said he didn't wanna coach?

@Achja would be a great coach. He obviously has something better to do. Well. He has a great talent. One day he might change his mind.

sv.lichess.org/coach/Kingscrusher-YouTube

Pic of the big berserk himself CM KC. I imagined him as younger.

I love it lichess. A list of awesome coaches with all their info on it. Now is a matter of just contacting one of them at some point. Do any of these coaches happen to coach for free?