The Chess Experience

 078 Dedicating three years of your life to chess as an adult is huge.  Especially when it includes OTB classical tournaments and running a chess YouTube channel.  That’s been the story of Sam Canciobello. Inspired by the Queen’s Gambit, her passion for chess - now in its fourth year - has been consistent and impressive. In this episode, we cover the different stages of her chess life, her long-te...

077 Part of being a chess player is losing many games. But what if those experiences didn’t have to be so painful? To that end, I solicited advice on how to deal with the most difficult losses. I received feedback from the adult improver community on social media, a handful of chess coaches, and a dash of my insights. Then, I collected what I felt was the most helpful advice, categorized them, and...

076  Jennifer Shahade returns to the podcast! 2023 was a major one for her, and we discuss the major milestones of her year. If you’re not familiar, Jennifer is a 2-time US Women’s Chess Champion, author of 4 chess books (including the recent hit Chess Queens ), and a long-time advocate of making the chess community a better place for women and girls. In this episode, we talk about: A recent, fun...

075 NM Dan Heisman is a world-renowned chess coach and author. He’s on the verge of publishing his thirteenth, and perhaps final, chess improvement book. In this episode, we take a retrospective of some of Dan’s best books and offer improvement advice relevant to each book. It’s an honor to celebrate Dan’s amazing multi-decade career as a chess author and his third appearance on the podcast. Some...

074  Many great women players deserve more attention. Consider that even the games of women's world champions are rarely studied. This shouldn't be the case any longer since their chess is instructive, and their personal lives are rich and inspired. Thankfully, WIM Luciana Morales (along with co-author NM Bryan Tillis) shines a light on the first five women world champions in a new and u...

A second visit to the pod from chess coach & author, FM Nate Solon! In recent years, Nate has become a well-known chess educator. He’s co-authored the highly-praised book, Evaluate Like a Grandmaster . In 2023, he released his first Chessable course on the Reti opening for White. Plus, Nate regularly publishes a popular e-newsletter on improvement advice called, Zwischenzug . (Links to all the...

072 She’s been making a splash in the chess world. Not only is WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni a regular commentator for top-level tournaments...she’s also become a key commentator for Hikaru’s Twitch channel while he competes at the Candidates and other key events. Plus, this year she’s created video instruction for two Chessable courses. One is for the Scotch opening. The other covers tactics. Both cours...

Not many chess resources are aimed directly at helping the adult improver. But the superb new book by well-known chess podcast host, Ben Johnson, does exactly that. Released this fall, it’s called Perpetual Chess Improvement . The book covers a broad range of topics for not only boosting your chess abilities but also answering difficult questions like: “Do you need to study endgames?” “How should...

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070 A small number of chess players make remarkably quick progress. Perhaps even fewer of those are adults. Which is why the achievements of this week’s guest, Kamryn Hellman, are so remarkable. She started playing chess for the first time as an adult. And, in just a little over a year, Kamryn rose to a 2000 Rapid rating on Chess.com.   Because progress this fast is rarely seen by adults, we explo...

For two decades, IM Dean Ippolito has been one of America’s top coaches. Throughout his career, he’s coached several scholastic talents to national titles. Plus, he’s authored six chess books. Dean’s own chess journey is just as impressive. He was a rising child star and competed professionally for a few years after high school. Today, he runs a successful coaching business called Dean of Chess Ac...

068 You may know him as best as “Fun Master” Mike, the face of ChessKid. For the past decade, Mike has been the Chief Chess Officer of ChessKid, the scholastic version of Chess.com. His mission has been to make the game fun and accessible for an ever-growing audience of young chess players. While my show primarily focuses on adult improvers, I’m always interested in how we grow this great game of...

067 How should you spend your chess time if you want to improve?  The problem for adult improvers isn’t always about having too little time or energy to get better. Often, the challenge is knowing how to use that time effectively. That’s where GM Noël Studer comes in to help us.  A former Swiss chess champion, and the youngest GM ever from Switzlerland, Noël is now helping chess improvers fine-tun...

This week features South Africa’s most charismatic chess streamer and commentator: WIM Jesse February.  Jesse has had an impressive tournament career that’s still going strong as she works toward the WGM title. Some of her accomplishments include representing the South African Women’s Team in three Chess Olympiads. Plus, she's a two-time winner of the South African Women’s Chess Championship....

065  WCM Alexandra Prado is a strong amateur player with a fast-rising chess Twitch channel. Rated 1859 FIDE, she has a renewed interest in competing in OTB classical.  Plus, she’s aiming for the Woman FIDE Master (WFM) title. On that goal, she’s getting coaching help from Chess Dojo’s IM Kostya Kavutskiy, which we discuss in this episode. We also chat about her chess life in Bolivia, what has hel...

064 For the past two decades, WGM Anna Zatonskih has been a powerhouse among women chess players in America. She is a 4-time US Women’s champion (06’, 08’, 09’, and 11’.) Plus, she’s been a member of every US Women’s team for the Chess Olympiad since 2004. And while she has struggled a bit competitively in recent years, Anna just achieved an incredible first-place victory at the prestigious Cairn’...

063 In the best possible way, Daniel King is a “triple threat” of chess: A GM professional competitor who’s played against some of the world’s best…A commentator who delivers GM-level analysis that’s easily accessible for us club players… And an educator who’s served up a library of phenomenal books, courses, and videos that’ll sharpen our chess skills. Not enough? He’s also a skilled and passiona...

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062 Few people have attended the world’s top chess tournaments. Or interviewed the most talented chess players on the planet, including legends like Garry Kasparov. But Peter Doggers has lived this life for nearly the past twenty years. In 2007, he launched the company Chess Vibes. At its peak, it was one of the world’s biggest online news sites for chess. It covered top events and offered in-dept...

061 It’s not often a chess content creator is an everyday superhero who’s also a school teacher and mother of three. But that’s what makes NM Laura Smith so special. She gives much of her free time to helping others in chess, both as a coach, a Twitch streamer, and now…a brand-spankin’ new Chessable author! Laura was one of my first guests to appear on the show, and the first interview I ever reco...

060 Diving head-first into chess as an adult beginner ain’t easy. Yet some folks do it incredibly well. And with inspiring dedication. That’s the adult improver story of Norway’s Solveig.  After watching the Magnus-Nepo World Championship match, she committed to the game in January ‘22.  At the time, she was rated well below 1000. Since then, she’s worked with two coaches, attended over half a doz...

059 Need some inspiration on your chess journey from a fellow adult improver? This week’s guest is a powerhouse. Even though she didn’t begin chess until adulthood, Stacia Pugh has soared to 1800 USCF - and still rising! Plus, she’s attending OTB classical tournaments nearly every month and has a chess coaching business called, Chess Is Best. In this episode, we discuss:  Stacia’s Top 8 Chess Impr...

058 Ah! The dreaded “life got in the way” scenario. When it does, our chess progress stalls or suffers. In this journey update, I explain how a prolonged health problem threw a monkey wrench into my chess goals. The good news is that during these months, while my tactical vision waned, I eventually gained two key insights into how to manage a setback in my chess studies.   I hope nothing ever slow...

057 Becoming a titled player without a chess coach is no easy feat.  Yet that’s exactly what Kassa Korley achieved. When he was 15, he became the youngest Black American to earn the NM title. Since then, he’s become an International Master. And, in recent years, he garnered two of the three norms needed in his pursuit of the Grandmaster title. Again, all on his own. No coach. Kassa’s chess journey...

056  Coach. Titled player. Entrepreneur. These are just a few of the impressive achievements of WIM Lena Miladinovic. Hailing from Serbia, and becoming a 3-time national champion, Lena has experienced nearly every major corner of the chess world. She’s also run tournaments, become a FIDE-certified arbiter, and in recent years built a unique chess business. Lena wants to make it easier for the ches...