You Can Learn From Your Wins, Too, And Other Study Tips From A U.S. Champion

WGM Sabina Foisor has been coaching and teaching chess for more than a decade, in addition to continuing her playing career and writing a book. Now, she is the Chess.com Coach of the Month for March 2025!

The Romanian-American woman grandmaster and 2017 U.S. Women's Champion draws on her great experience and ability in order to help others improve their chess game. Recently, Sabina thoughtfully shared her coaching philosophy, the best coaches she has learned from, teachable moments from her best games, and much more.

Interested in lessons? Contact Sabina on her Chess.com profile!

At what age were you introduced to chess, and who introduced you?

My story began before I was born, as both my parents were strong international masters and top players in Romania. Their dream was for us to become a chess family, being able to travel together to compete in tournaments across the globe. That dream soon became a reality as both myself and my sister took up chess and worked on our improvement. As a teenager, I had dreams of becoming a top female player in the world, but life had other plans.

It was both my maternal grandpa and my dad who first introduced me to how the pieces move when I was around four years old, but for most of my chess development, it was my dad who dedicated a lot of his time to teach me and help me attain my highest potential. Despite moments of hardship, I will forever be grateful to my parents for always keeping me on track and teaching me about the importance of being organized and disciplined, so that I could manage my chess improvement while also maintaining good grades in school and learning a few foreign languages.

What is your first vivid memory from chess?

I think one of my first memories was winning the European Under-8 Girls Championship. I was six or seven years old at the time, and I remember winning all of my games and somehow being there on the podium when I received my cup and medal. I was so young, but it was a beautiful moment to know you can achieve greatness if you are willing to put in the work.

Which coaches were helpful to you in your chess career, and what was the most useful knowledge they imparted to you?

My first coaches were my parents. I will always cherish their love and dedication. My dad has mostly dedicated his life to coaching the three of us (myself, my mom IM Cristina-Adela, and my sister WIM Mihaela-Veronica). I have often felt it must have been difficult for him to be both a dad and a coach, since in my mind he was extra tough, but who knows, maybe if he hadn’t pushed me to be the best version of myself, I wouldn’t have received the various accolades I did. I like the saying by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” It’s a quote that reminds me to be thankful for what I have. 

I remember as a kid, my parents would oftentimes invite some of their chess-playing friends to our place. Someone I remember with pleasure was IM Emil Ungureanu. I really enjoyed working with him and he taught me some Sicilian, and though I haven’t played it in a while, it brought me quite a few victories. He also gifted me an endgame book by IM Georgy Lisitsin; maybe that’s where my love for endgames has started. He was a wonderful person, and his lessons have stayed with me all these years and have a lot of meaning to me.

For a few months, as I was waiting to compete in the European Championships in 2004, I remember working daily with GM Alin Berescu. Though the time was limited, his help that summer was ended up bringing me four European Girls' medals in rapid, blitz, composition, and classical chess.

Every single coach I have worked with after taking life into my own hands in 2008, when I came to study in the U.S., has had an impact in maintaining or improving my chess level. Some have had a bigger impact than others.

More recently, I am very thankful to GM Elshan Moradiabadi for his unconditional dedication to helping me improve both chess-wise and emotionally. His guidance, specifically in building a repertoire and reminding me of the importance of working on my goals, will forever be appreciated.

What is your favorite or best game you ever played?

Many consider my best game to be the one that brought me the title of U.S. Champion in 2017. I have analyzed this game and shared my thoughts on many occasions and it certainly will always be one of my fondest memories, as it came a couple months after the passing of my mom on January 21, 2017.

The one I consider my best game, however, is the one I played against now-GM Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant. This game was also very special, as it was a beautiful positional game that I won. Later in that event, after having a tough start, I was able to qualify for the Women’s World Chess Championship for the first time.

How would you describe your approach to chess coaching?

I have had a good overall chess career, which I am trying to keep balanced with my coaching. I find it important to continue developing oneself so that one can always bring up-to-date information to their students. I like to call myself a chess professional, as I continue to find ways to stay active in chess, be it by training, playing, coaching, social media, podcasts, etc. I embraced the role of a coach around the year 2013 or so, teaching and mentoring chess players of all levels. My coaching philosophy is deeply rooted in sharing my personal journey, which includes overcoming challenges and pushing past obstacles on the road to chess improvement. 

I focus on identifying and addressing weaknesses in a player's game, using an experiential learning method. This method emphasizes learning through mistakes, analyzing both wins and losses to understand what went wrong and why. I believe that examining winning games is as crucial as reviewing losses, as players often overlook mistakes in victories. Through this process, I help my students recognize their patterns, correct their errors, and refine their strengths. As students progress to higher levels, I foster creativity in their game by presenting challenging positions and puzzles that require unconventional thinking and problem-solving. 

Examining winning games is as crucial as reviewing losses, as players often overlook mistakes in victories. 

Of course, I am aware that the work I was able to do as a kid—at least three or four hours spent on chess daily, guided by my parents—is sometimes not possible, and most of my students only take one hour a week with me, but I suggest extra material for study. Further, I emphasize the importance of consistent practice and provide personalized homework, which is later discussed in class.

I would also like to mention that I find group classes to be helpful to building communities, and on a personal level, working with someone to help each other improve is something I think students can benefit from. Elshan Moradiabadi and I have co-founded the Chess Evolve Academy. We provide small group classes for students of various levels. I think these can be a great addition to private classes with a coach. Firstly, they are more affordable, and secondly, it can help build friendships to continue working together.

What do you consider your responsibility as a coach and which responsibilities fall on your student?

As a coach, I aim to provide personalized instruction and create a learning environment where students feel supported, challenged, and encouraged. My role is to offer constructive feedback, explain concepts, and ensure that my students understand the reasoning behind their mistakes and successes. Additionally, I strive to inspire creativity (my favorite part of chess, which hasn’t been overtaken by the computer age) and critical thinking in their gameplay, especially as they reach higher levels of understanding. 

On the student’s side, their responsibility is to be dedicated, practice consistently, and engage actively in the learning process. They must be open to feedback, willing to analyze both wins and losses, and put in the effort to improve. Consistent practice, thoughtful reflection on games, and a commitment to learning are crucial for making progress. My goal is to provide the tools and support, but ultimately, the student must take ownership of their growth and be proactive in applying what they’ve learned.

What is a piece of advice that you give your students that you think more chess players could benefit from?

Embrace learning from both wins and losses equally. While it’s natural to focus on losses and the mistakes made, winning games also provide valuable lessons. It’s a common misconception that we can't learn from wins, but often there are subtle mistakes or areas for improvement that can be overlooked. Embracing this mindset helps foster continuous growth and improvement in chess.

Remember that there will always be another game tomorrow, so try not to let losses affect your peace of mind! A year from now, you will barely recall how painful the loss was in the moment, and you will have grown so much from it.

There will always be another game tomorrow, so try not to let losses affect your peace of mind.

I would also like to add something I am working on myself, and that is to stop comparing your own progress to others'. It's a very individual process. Focus on your own work! It isn’t easy to do this, but it is important to be more patient with yourself, so I continue sharing that experience with my own students.

What is your favorite teaching game that users might not have seen?

I think in order to be a good coach, you have to continue learning on your own as well, because only by keeping up with theory and the way chess has developed can you really understand how to adjust your teaching to best benefit your students. Personally, in recent years, I felt it was important to emphasize knowledge of classic games. One of my favorite games of all time is the one between Jose Capablanca and Karel Treybal. I am sure many of the users are familiar with that game, so I would like to instead share one of my favorite games of GM Judit Polgar. 

What is the puzzle you give students that tells you the most about how they think?

Do you prefer to teach online or offline? What do you think is different about teaching online?

I don't have a preference and enjoy teaching both ways. I don’t think it matters much unless the student is having trouble focusing, in which case I recommend face-to-face classes. But I mostly teach online now.

What do you consider the most valuable training tool that the internet provides?

Definitely using websites like Chess.com that provide lots of tactics and have statistics to show you where you seem to go wrong, so that you can continue solving tactics on your own and improve those areas where you are struggling to recognize patterns.

I also really enjoy courses on Chessable and find it beautiful as players around the world get the chance to learn from the masters and also become familiar with faces that they maybe didn’t know about before.

Which under-appreciated chess book should every chess player read?

There are so many classic books, but I am going to be bold and promote myself a bit, since I felt we got a bit unlucky—our book was published during the pandemic and we never had the chance to promote it in real life. Elshan and I co-authored a book called Sherlock’s Method. Our goal was to inspire players to prepare for an event. It was Elshan’s idea to share a beautiful detective story in the book. So you get to train by being mentored by Sherlock through the eyes of Dr. Watson. I loved putting the material together and I hope more people get the chance to read through it.