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Index of Coaching handouts and Blog posts, by Class

To see pages for juniors, try a different view.

There is also a guide to levels, ratings and grades.

The handouts used in our coaching sessions are shown on the tables below. We have substantial pages and more chatty blogs, and they are all given a level (A-D, where A are better players and G is for everyone) and a topic (Openings, Tactics, Endgames...). The tables show the level across the top and the topic down the side.

Type: Page

 GDCBA
Attack 
*Attacking the castled King (D)
*The Very Slow King's-side Attack (C)
*The Theory of Steinitz (B)
*Capablanca - Master of the Attack (B)
 
books
*CHRISTMAS BOOK REVIEW: last minute gifts for the unimproved player (G)
    
Coaching
*Chess and Psychology (G)
*Book review: Danger in chess - Avni (G)
    
Tactics
*Visualization/Analysis in Chess (G)
*Practical Tactics (G)
*The Improving Annotator (G)
*Erro ergo sum: analysis and error (G)
*Shredder/Chess Tutor Daily Chess Puzzle (IFRAME) (G)
*Get your eye in -- basic practice in noticing attacks (D)
*Vukovic's mates (D)
*Essential checkmate patterns (D)
*Upon the pin (D)
*Blunders at East Devon (C)
*Strategy and Tactics (B)
*Preparation for Combinations (A)
Strategy 
*Kings and Queens (D)
*Knight outposts (D)
*Rooks on ranks and files (D)
*The Fianchetto: a user's guide (D)
*Opposite-coloured Bishops in the endgame and the middle-game (C)
*Exchanging to Win (C)
*Schematic thinking (C)
*Weak pawns (C)
*Pawn formations (C)
*Doubled c-Pawns (B)
*Weak squares (B)
*Planning (B)
*Mysterious moves (B)
*Bishops: good, bad and both. (B)
*Pawn mobility (B)
*The Queen's-side attack (B)
*Who's afraid of the Big Bad Minority attack? (A)
*New starting formations (Tabi'at) (A)
*On manoeuvres (A)
Endings 
*Queen against Pawn (D)
*Winning a drawn endgame (D)
*Exchanging into King Endings (D)
*General advice on the endgame (D)
*Mate with the Two Bishops (D)
*Outside passed Pawns (D)
*Mate with Two Bishops (D)
*MiddleGame Endings and Endgame Openings (D)
*Rook Endings in Theory (D)
*A Rook Ending: Capablanca-Janowsky (C)
*Rook Endings in Practice (C)
*Ruy Lopez, Exchange Variation: White wins (C)
*Two weaknesses (B)
*Studies and problems (B)
*Bishop Endgames (B)
*How to mate with Bishop and Knight (A)
*Double Bishop Endgames (A)
Praxis
*Random Chess Advice (G)
*The Great BICS Internet Chess Match (G)
*Two Open Games (G)
*Shakespeare Annotates (G)
*What makes a difference? (G)
*Is there luck in chess? (G)
*Exeter Chess Club Simul 1995 (G)
*Clock control (G)
*The Art of Analysis, Part 2 (G)
*The Art of Analysis, Part 1 (G)
*Why do we lose? (G)
*Club games (G)
*Assess Your Chess (G)
*A chess glossary (G)
*How do Chess-Players Think? (G)
*What's wrong with club players? An MOT for us all (G)
*Bruce Rowston at work (D)
*Lessons from Morphy (D)
*A disaster in the Stonewall (D)
*General Middlegame Advice (D)
*Cool Tips (D)
*Lessons from Mikhail Tal (C)
*Chess with Attitude (C)
*Lessons from Bobby Fischer (C)
*Compensation for material? (C)
*Chess style (C)
*Club Games - Steve Webb at work (B)
*Club Games - Mark Blackmore on a roll (B)
*Lessons from Larsen (B)
*Lessons from Rubinstein (B)
*Contempt for Pawns (B)
*Lessons from Capablanca (B)
*Lessons from Lasker (B)
*Steve Homer at work (A)
*Club Games - Andrew Pickering at work (A)
*Lessons from Petrosian (A)
*Lessons from Tartakower (A)
*Chunking in patterns of GM thought (A)
*Meat and potatoes (A)
misc
*Chess Notation (G)
*Semi-Random Baseline Chess (G)
*How to play chess (G)
*PDF versions of handouts (G)
*Levels ratings and grades (G)
*The Canon (G)
*Play through PGN collections (G)
*Chess Coaching Summer 2011 (updated 23rd August) (G)
*An ABC of chess (G)
*Knight's Tour (D)
   
Openings
*A la carte (G)
*ECO Opening codes: list with variation names (G)
*Minor Opening Mistakes (D)
*The Ulvestad Variation of the Two Knights' Defence (D)
*Ten rules for the opening (D)
*Nineteenth-Century Openings (D)
*No More Old Stodge! (D)
*No more Old Stodge! (2) (D)
*The Italian Game for beginners (D)
*Playing Black against King's-Pawn Openings (1.e4) (D)
*Four Choices in the Opening (D)
*Choosing an Opening Repertoire (D)
*The French Defence for Beginners I: Key Ideas (D)
*Playing 1.d4 for juniors (D)
*Minor Openings (D)
*Lessons in Philidor's Defence (D)
*A first opening repertoire (D)
*Moller (C)
*The Colle System (C)
*Custer's Last Stand (C)
*The Dutch Stonewall (C)
*Playing Black against Queen's-Pawn Openings (C)
*Playing White against odd Black defences after 1.e4 (C)
*Beating the Anti-Indians (C)
*The Petroff Defence for Beginners (C)
*Tales of the Unexpected: dealing with Unorthodox Openings (C)
*Playing Black against Queen's-Pawn Openings (3): without c2-c4 (C)
*Gambits (C)
*The secret arts of castling (C)
*The French Defence for Beginners II: Key Variations (C)
*Playing Black against Queen's-Pawn Openings (1) Cambridge Springs (C)
*Playing Black against Queen's-Pawn Openings (2): Semi-Slav and Exchange (C)
*Playing White against odd Black defences after 1.e4 (1) (C)
*Playing White against odd Black defences after 1.e4 (2) (C)
*Playing White against odd Black defences after 1.e4 (3) (C)
*SuperMac! (B)
*The Variations of the King's Gambit (B)
*The Ideas behind the King's Gambit (B)
*The Queen's Gambit Accepted/Isolated Queen's Pawn (B)
*Five Sicilians from club play (B)
*The French 'Little Centre' (B)
*The Ideas behind the English Opening (B)
*The Sicilian Defence (B)
*The Modern Italian Game (B)
*The Ideas Behind the Modern Defence (B)
*Slav or Semi? (B)
*Dr.Dave's Adventures with the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (B)
*The Hypermodern Approach (B)
*Spanish Torture? The Ruy Lopez (A)
*The Deadly English (A)
*You know when you've been Benko'd (A)
*Taimanov's Legacy (A)
Openings, TBD    
*The Closed Sicilian (A)

Type: Blog entry

 GDCBA
Attack  
*Attack and Defence (C)
  
books
*DVDs: is it just me? (G)
*Rowson (G)
*The Seven Deadly Chess Books (G)
*The trouble with writing books (D)
*Logical Chernev (D)
   
Coaching
*Your Chess Profile (G)
*What you see with your mind (G)
*Know Yourself (G)
*Wise words (G)
*A Thinking Process (G)
*Do chessplayers think? (G)
*Three results (G)
*Thinking (G)
*Dealing with Complexity (G)
*Are you sitting comfortably? (G)
*Summer Coaching 2009 (G)
*Annotating games (G)
*Elements of a chess profile (G)
*Coaching for Adults (G)
*Chess and Maths (D)
*Joe, Harry and Jay: in praise of a second pair of eyes (C)
*Chess Psychology (B)
 
Tactics
*Queen sacrifices (G)
*By the way... (G)
*Tactics: combinations and blunders (G)
*Making Tactics Work (G)
 
*Tactical surprises (C)
*Exchange Sacrifices (C)
*A Queen sacrifice (B)
 
Strategy  
*A Planning Challenge (C)
*Planning (C)
*Co-ordination (again) (B)
*What are we going to do now? (2/2) (B)
*The Initiative (B)
*What are we going to do now? 1/2 (B)
 
Endings  
*Minor Piece Endgames (C)
*Endgame Ahoy! (C)
*Planning in the endgame (C)
*The Beginning of the End (C)
  
Praxis
*How not to beat Andrew Greet (G)
*Swindles (G)
*How Not to Beat Jack Rudd (G)
*The Secret of Not Losing (G)
*Winning Chess for Humans (G)
*More games (D)
*Your Actual Mistakes (C)
*An exercise in punctuation (B)
*Playing for a win (B)
 
misc
*Computer Resources (G)
*Summer Coaching 2010 (G)
*Summer Coaching 2008 (G)
*The 65th square (G)
*Knight Work (G)
  
*Material, planning, Exchange sac, Opening systems (B)
*Material imbalance: Queen for Two Rooks (A)
Openings
*Openings Workshop 2010 (G)
*Learning Opening Lines (G)
*A bird's eye view of repertoires (G)
*Openings Workshop 2011 (G)
*Opening development and coordination (G)
*Attacking the Two Knights' Defence (D)
*Moller Attack (D)
*Classical rocks (C)
*Opening Books to help a solid Black player (C)
*Ish's Opening Stats (C)
*Defending against 1.e4 (C)
*Novel Opening Play (C)
*Modern Classics - the Scotch Gambit (C)
*The Sicilian Jungle (B)
*The Slav and Semi-Slav (B)
*Big Mac (B)
*Openings Workshop 2008 (B)
*Bird lives! (A)

Chess Quotes

"When Garri Kasparov wrestles with his conscience, he always wins. It's what he's best at."
— Dominic LAWSON