Chess Journeys: Tales of Adult Improvement

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Chris Wainscott. He’s 48, an adult improver, co-founder of the Chesspunks Twitter community, tournament director, and prolific writer. We discussed his goal of reaching 2200 and the process he is taking to achieve it. Perhaps most interesting is his up and down rating, which peaked at nearly 1900 before landing today at just over 1700. Chris is an avid Che...

This week on Chess Journeys, guest host Neal Bruce interviews me, Dr. Skull. I reflect on my chess origin story and returning to the game a year ago with high expectations. This is a challenging episode for me, as I process the disconnect between spending 500 hours on chess this year and making no ratings gains. Neal does a great job as my therapist, and I hope our conversation is helpful to other...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Andrew. He’s 24, has a career, and is obsessed with chess. Andrew’s had tremendous growth over the last 2 years. He started by getting whomped by his 800 roommate, but now has a current peak of 2300. Impressive stuff indeed! We talked about a wide range of topics such as videos, books, and his love of chess. My biggest takeaway from the interview is that A...

This week on Chess Journeys I am joined by Tim. In many ways this is a selfish podcast, as I specifically invited Tim to talk about his method of breaking out of a plateau at 1600. Tim and I talked a lot about his journey and the plateaus that he has faced. Tim defends his hot take that reading chess books isn’t necessary until 1600! Tim spends a lot of time working with Chessable for openings and...

This week on Chess Journeys, I am joined by David Mencik. He’s a busy academic, coach, and adult improver. David and I discussed his approach to developing as a player and helping other adult improvers as a coach. David shared his origin story, his study plans, his favorite resources, and his coaching style. Most enlightening were his 3 takeaways for how students can get the most from their coachi...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Kevin. He has a busy life and career, but he’s a dedicated adult improver. We had a wide ranging conversation focusing on coaching, resources, and heroes. Kevin is bringing an interesting approach to his improvement, identifying heroes that match his style. Kevin plays through their games and tries to meld together information from Pachman, My System, and...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Joel. He’s a dedicated adult improver and father of four, so time is limited and precious. We talked about a wide variety of topics such as the importance of actually playing chess, even if it is just blitz. Joel shared his favorite resources, his study methods, and his reasons for employing a coach. Joel has spent a lot of time on tactics, reaching a 3000...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Zach, a former Magic the Gathering player who has returned to his first love chess! We talk about his origin story and his time as first board for his high school team. Zach outlines his process for improvement, which features 6 week focused studies. Zach recommends a lot of books and Chessable courses including Yusupov’s orange books, Kostya’s Endgame Stu...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with NM Jeremy Kane. We spoke about the challenges of pursuing chess improvement while raising a family, especially with an infant! Jeremy shared his thoughts on books that helped him, annotated game collections, and the reality of studying chess as a non-professional. We also discussed his forthcoming book The Next to Last Mistake. We focused on the challenges...

This week I’m joined by the one and only Neal Bruce. Neal is well known for his propensity to murder books and turn them into notecards. Today, we talked about his past, present, and future chess journeys. We talked about how much time he has for chess, how small habits have transformative power, and his chess goals. We also talked about the creation of the #chesspunks community on Twitter. As alw...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Luca, author of the blog Atlas (https://chessatlas.net/atlas/). We spoke about his adult improvement journey. We discussed his regime before his current work sabbatical and what he is doing with his extra time. Luca laid out his approach including working through Yusupov’s chess books, the Woodpecker method, and playing longer games. You can support the sh...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with IM, coach, and content creator Kostya Kavutskiy. We discussed his journey as an adult improver, his recommendations, and the Chess Dojo. Kostya provided a wide range of helpful advice including how to play through annotated games, the secret recipe to chess improvement, and the best way to learn endgames. Be sure to check out Kostya’s recently released Che...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with another Kevin. We discussed how he uses his 10 hours a week of study time. We had a discussion about the value of opening plans over lines. Kevin also shared with me his Woodpecker style tactics project as well as his newest notecard project. We also discussed his first over the board experiences and what it’s like living in the St. Louis chess capital of...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Daniel. After playing in middle school and a 27 year hiatus, Daniel was inspired by the Queen’s Gambit to return to chess. Daniel is dedicated to chess, putting in 3-4 hours daily. Over the last 10 months, he’s raised his rapid rating from 1000-1400. We discussed his return, his habits, OTB chess, and the value of coaches. Daniel recommends Chessable, Irvi...

This week on Chess Journeys, I’m joined by Pascoe. After solving chess as a child, Pascoe returned to chess as an adult improver. This week Pascoe shared his story of improvement over an 8 year span. We discussed his different rating gains which he attributes to a fleshed out opening repertoire and endgame study. We also discussed his love hate relationship with some of Jeremy Silman’s most lauded...

This week on Chess Journeys, I had the pleasure of talking to someone in the middle of a ratings gain. Max Farberov recently went 5-0 in a tournament, sending his rating over 2000 USCF. Max provided a tournament report for his inspiring success. We discussed Max’s approach to improvement which focuses mainly on analyzing his own games. We also talked about Max’s thoughts on videos, books, and othe...

This week on Chess Journeys, I chat with the legendario himself, IM Andras Toth. Coach Andras and I discussed a wide range of topics such as his decision to teach primarily adults, his relationship with chess improvers and the chesspunks community, his favorite video series, and many other improvement tips. In other news the show now has a patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/ChessJourneys Ple...

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with Ono. We discussed the challenges of fitting chess into a full and busy adult life. Ono talked about creating long term goals based on learning rather than rating. He provided books and videos that have helped him. Ono also discussed his process of mostly improving by playing rapid games and examining them without an engine. Something that I aspire to but s...

This week on Chess Journeys, I had the pleasure of talking to Nate Solon. Nate is a data scientist and a high level chess player (FIDE Master). We talked about Nate’s approach to chess improvement and how it has changed from his childhood years to improving as an adult. We covered a wide range of topics such as how data can affect improvement and whether structure has the positive effect that we t...

This week on Chess Journeys, I talked with Omar’s about his experiences as a player recently picking up chess. We chatted about his initial dreams of becoming a GM and drawing Magnus to the reality check of his first tournament. Omar shared his over the board experiences, giving newer players great insights into the highs and lows of these experiences. We also discussed his improvement plans. Be s...

This week on Chess Journeys, Fionn and I talked about different types of chess learners. Despite having a PhD, Fionn is very much a video oriented learner. We also discussed social vs. lone learners, book vs. video, and active vs. passive learning. We compared some of our favorite video content creators that bring out our active learning side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices...

This week on Chess Journeys, Sophie and I discussed her transition from teenage scholastic player to adult improver and the new balance that needs to be struck. We discussed the transition from playing against kids to playing against adults. But primarily we focused on the psychological aspects of chess. We explored topics such as the perils of having our identity tied to success and improvement....

This week on Chess Journeys, I spoke with David. He’s in his twenties and has been playing for several years. We focused primarily on his method for working out of rating plateaus. He successfully navigated a year-long pause at 1500 and is currently stuck at 1900. We also discussed interesting topics such as the plague that is online cheating, how we process it, and randomness in chess. Learn more...

This week on Chess Journeys I bring in Kirk. Kirk and I talked about his systematic approach to juggling work, family, and chess improvement. We also discussed the issue of working through rating slumps and stagnation. Kirk suggested that not focusing on improvement was the answer for him. Kirk also suggested blending a variety of types of content to help improvement.  Learn more about your ad cho...

This week I’m joined by Jessi Shakarian. She’s new to chess, first learning the moves this year! Jessi shares with us the experience of a new chess player and the impact that chess has had on the rest of her life. We discuss a wide variety of topics such as the value of ratings and coaches. Be sure to check out Jessi’s blog at https://jshakarian.medium.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...