10 Best Chess Coaches in the World
There are two types of chess coaches. One who help students to become Grandmasters and another chess coach who teaches beginners and create thousands of chess lovers who potentially can become top-level chess player.
Teaching beginners and helping to make them rated chess players is more difficult than the first category. It is easy to give advice to IMs, and eventually, if they follow, they can become GM. But to make a rated player, the coach has to work hard to teach hundreds of chess concepts related to chess openings, middlegame, and endgame.
Reality is very few become famous. In this article, we will see the eight best chess coaches in the world who helped various chess players to reach a new high. There are a few bonus names which you will find very interesting.
Best chess coaches in the world
Although there are more than thousands of chess coaches, it is practically impossible to find who is the best. Still, I tried to pick a list of the best chess coaches in the world who really did a good job in chess coaching.
Jacob Aagard
No doubt Jacob Aagard is a good chess coach. Jacob is also a co-founder of Quality Chess, a chess publishing company. Jacob has written more than ten books on chess. He is still an active writer. He became Grandmaster in 2007, with a peak rating of 2542 in 2010.
The most famous books are Grandmaster Preparation Series which consists of 6 books. This series includes Calculation, Strategic Play, Positional Play, Endgame Play, Thinking Outside the Box, and Attack and Defense.
Jacob also runs Killer Chess Training, an online group chess coaching program. There he charges an annual fee in which you get a daily dose of chess.
FIDE awarded him with the Senior Trainer title in 2011. His main student is GM Sam Sakhland from the USA. In his seminars and coaching camps, Jacob has trained many students, including IMs and GMs.
Ivan Sokolov
Ivan Sokolov is a Grandmaster originally from Yugoslavia. Since 2010, he has been representing and playing chess in the Netherlands. Ivan achieved his GM title in 1987 with a peak rating of 2706 in 2004. After a few years, he becomes a full-time chess trainer. Following are his notable achievement as a chess coach
- Worked with a GM Salem Saleh AR from the United Arab Emirates as a second as well as trainer.
- Worked with Iran’s National Team
- Trained GM Alireza Firouzja
- National Team Coach of Uzbekistan
Apart from this work, he also contributed and authored many chess books and chess courses.
RB Ramesh
GM RB Ramesh is an Indian Chess Grandmaster who became very popular after his student Rameshbabu Praggananandhaa defeated Magnus Carlsen in the Champions Chess Tour. Ramesh is from Tamilnadu, also known as India’s chess capital. He became Grandmaster in 2003. He married WGM Aarthie Ramaswamy and started Chess Gurukul academy in Chennai.
Ramesh trained more than 1000s students. He recently started Pro Chess Training, a concept similar to Killer Chess Training started by Jacob Aagard. Here is the list of his few students who become Grandmaster
- Rameshbabu Praggananandhaa
- Karthikeyan Murali
- Aravindh Chithambaram
- Bharath Subramaniyam
Apart from this, Ramesh is working as a National Men’s Chess Team coach for various events.
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov is known as a chess player and world champion. Many of us don’t know that Garry was the chess coach of World Champion Magnus Carlsen. I have included Garry in the list simply because he trained Magnus.
Magnus is undoubtedly the best chess player in the world, and Garry Played a role in it.
Garry Kasparov also started his website Kasparovchess where he recorded a few lessons. He also has a basic chess course on the MasterClass platform.
Unfortunately, there are almost zero chances that you can hire Garry as a chess coach. It will require pure luck.
Levy Rozman
Levy Rozman is an American International Master. He got his IM title in 2018. He is a world-famous chess streamer and the most famous chess YouTuber according to 2022. In 2022, Levy announced his retirement from professional chess. We will hope to see him in some exhibition matches. He was also nominated for Best Streamers Award 2022.
The main reason I have included him in this list is because of his teaching style. Levy posts daily one youtube video and also streams on Twitch. Due to this and his teaching style, he gained a lot of popularity. On youtube, he has 1.63M subscribers, which is a massive number.
If we say his 1% of subscribers generated interest in chess and played one chess tournament, then also it becomes 16k people. Also, we have just taken a number from youtube. He has thousands of followers on other platforms such as Twitter, Chess.com, and Instagram.
His teaching style has become unique and very interactive.
Mikhail Shereshvesky
Mikhail Shereshvesky is a Russian Chess International Master. His Endgame Strategy book, which was published in 1981, is known as one of the best chess books and recognized by GM Magnus Carlsen, GM Rafael Leitão, and GM Jan Gustafsson.
Initially, he was working under Mark Dvoretsky. Later he started working with the Belarusian chess team and helped them a lot. He taught following students who later became Top Chess Players in their country.
- aleksej aleksandrov
- Elena Zaiatz
- Tatyana Grabusova
Mark Dvorotesky
Who doesn’t know legend Mark Dvoretsky? Mark was born in Russia in 1947. He has a peak rating of 2540. He taught many top-level chess players and also did extensive work in Russia. Mark is also a great author and has written a famous endgame book called Dvortsky’s Endgame Manual.
Mark’s main aim was to work with 2200 players and help them to reach Grandmasters. His books received many awards. He got awarded by FIDE Senior Trainer title.
Mark worked with Arthur Jusupow to produce some high-quality books. Few of his students are as follows
- Garry Kasparov
- Viswanathan Anand
- Veselin Topalov
- Evgeny Bareev
- Joël Lautier
- Loek van Wely
- Aleksey Dreev
- Nana Alexandria
- Victor Bologan
- Ernesto Inarkiev
- Alexander Motylev
Unfortunately, Mark died on 26th September 2016.
Vladimir Chuchelov
Vladimir Chuchelov is a Grandmaster from Belgium. At his peak time, he was on the FIDE top 100 list and had a peak rating of 2606. Chuchelov is known for his world-famous chess course.
Vladimir worked with Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana, and Hao Yifan.
Lazslo Polgar
Lazslo Polgar is the father of the famous trio of Polgar sisters. His 3 daughters are Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit. All three become top-level chess players. Judit Polgar became the first and only female chess player who crossed the 2700 rating. Judit also played and defeated almost every top chess player. Mr. Polgar believes geniuses are made, not born philosophy.
In the older days, it was very difficult to see women playing chess, and at that time, he raised three women, chess players.
Lazslo is also a chess author who wrote a puzzle book, 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games. If you want to read more about him, you can read from the Wikipedia page.
Yourself
This will definitely surprise you. But if you want to succeed in chess, it mostly depends on you. A coach can teach you chess and some psychological aspects, but to become a top chess player, you have to love this game a lot.
You must spend 6-8 hours daily to become Grandmaster or world champion. A coach can help you 8-10 hours a month or sometimes more. He can only give motivation to you.
If you do hard work, you can achieve success in chess without any chess coach. I became FIDE Master and increased 400 points without any chess coach.
There are thousands of free chess resources which will help you to become a better chess player.
FAQ’s
Why is a chess coach necessary for chess players?
A chess coach can help you in many aspects, such as psychological aspects, giving motivation, and, of course, teaching chess. If you are a beginner, you should definitely hire a chess coach. It will become your journey smooth.
It is not compulsory to have a chess coach. You can use various resources such as lichess.org, which is completely free and open source, and some paid resources such as ChessMood, chess.com, and AimChess.
How to hire a chess coach?
We have already written a few articles on this topic. You can read by clicking the following posts.
How to become a chess coach?
To become a good chess coach, first, you have to become a good chess player. You can give knowledge to other people when you are knowledgeable. If you are fulfilling these criteria, go to chess.com and register as a chess coach. Also, create your chess website and promote your services.
Also, it is important to retain students. To keep student retention rates high, provide them value. Teach them everything you know. Once a few of your students win awards or trophies, you will automatically get more and more inquiries.
