Some post have been deleted. I was confused by 1 on the 1st page that said something about $35. an hour.
My new chess coach is crazy!
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Sep 8, 2014
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#43
The first lesson is one Bud Lite...by the tenth lesson he may require two cases of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal stout.
Man why do you want to be 2000 ? To beat all your friends so bad that they don't want to play you again ? 
JustADude80 wrote:
Oh. So you were serious when you said that all he charges is a beer? I thought that was either a joke or just his first sample class before he starts charging you money. I don't think you can be real picky if your are getting lessons for almost free.
Lots of coaches like to teach that "what color is this square" thing. Danny Rensch does that. He said he learned it in a Russian chess school.
Yep - one Red Horse per hour. Price is good. I have never heard of this "What color is the square" thing. Sitting here I have looked it up and it does seem to be something that some coaches use.
Of course I never heard of doing check mating patterns without a chess board either - so it is all kinda new to me.
chessmicky wrote:
Your coach sounds like he has a well thought out, systematic approach. It seems as if he is trying to build up your capacity for accurate visualization and calculation. Since these skills are essential to becoming a good player, I say go for it! I only wish that I had been taught a good system for systematically building my strength at calculating and visualizing.
I honestly never heard of visualization training (in a chess since) prior to tonight. I had to read about that as well on the internet. The more stuff I look up the more I look foolish than he does -
Funny how that works
justus_jep wrote:
Man why do you want to be 2000 ? To beat all your friends so bad that they don't want to play you again ?
Just a personal goal - nothing more nothing less!
I wanted to be a drummer a long time ago. Instead I'm just a patzer.
Sep 8, 2014
0
#49
TheChessAnalyst skrev:
JustADude80 wrote:
Oh. So you were serious when you said that all he charges is a beer? I thought that was either a joke or just his first sample class before he starts charging you money. I don't think you can be real picky if your are getting lessons for almost free.
Lots of coaches like to teach that "what color is this square" thing. Danny Rensch does that. He said he learned it in a Russian chess school.
Yep - one Red Horse per hour. Price is good. I have never heard of this "What color is the square" thing. Sitting here I have looked it up and it does seem to be something that some coaches use.
Of course I never heard of doing check mating patterns without a chess board either - so it is all kinda new to me.
I recommnend that you become a diamond member and look at this awesome video.
http://www.chess.com/video/player/achieving-full-board-awareness
by IM Daniel Rensch
he explains the importance of knowing each color, diagonal and more.
I guess your coach is inspired by that video.
http://www.chess.com/video/player/achieving-full-board-awareness
He might be a good coach technically, but if his personality clashes with you then you're not likely to learn much. In any student-teacher relationship personal compatability can be just as important as technical knowledge or skill.
Spike his beer and switch to reading John Nunn and Johan Hellsten, it will save you a great deal of aggravation, and keystrokes too.
Paul Littlewood, Chess Tactics, (1984), and Jeremy Silman, Essential Chess Endings Explained Move by Move, Vol. #1 (1992) are all you need to understand the intermediate works by Nunn and Hellsten.
On balance, that will keep you busy for at least a year. If you don't burn out by then, you'll be ready for another make-over at the end of that time.
On balance, your profile write-up makes me think you actually like the way you're currently being taught. Sorry.
Chess is a life-long addiction, and "fanaticism" is quite common. 
At times we meet good people with seemingly strange ways /attitudes & only time can only tell whether they really can help you in progress. It was a good thing that you vented out your feelings through forum & discussions,which will help you to understand some of his aspects & increase your patience .
To me ,his ways sound funny & will help to learn if we keep aside the things that hurt us for a while & be open to new experience !
Sep 9, 2014
0
#54
The diagram he gave you was a test to see if you had any future GM strength. It was published in Chess Life Mag. I would assume you will not be a GM. Depending on your time. People who are future GM's usually do the test without seeing it in under 2 min or so.
justus_jep wrote:
Man why do you want to be 2000 ? To beat all your friends so bad that they don't want to play you again ?
yeah that's my problem.....I once played a friend at queen and two rook odds with black, i crushed him. lol. Around there i'm viewed as an a chess maniac. I could beat 90% of the people blindfolded without trying. lol, so my suggesttion, stay at 1500/1600 so people will play you.
Ferric wrote:
The diagram he gave you was a test to see if you had any future GM strength. It was published in Chess Life Mag. I would assume you will not be a GM. Depending on your time. People who are future GM's usually do the test without seeing it in under 2 min or so.
The answer is 20 moves - the path I took was:
Na1 - b3 - c5 -a6 - c7 - a8 - b6 - d7 - f8 - g6 - h8 - f7 - h6 - f5 - g3 - h1 - f2 - d1 - e3 - c2 -a1 (I beleive I do not have the peice of paper I had to write on)
Not to argue with you, I highly doubt that this is a test for GM strenght, anyone who has played the game for more than a couple of months knows that to get to different color square with a knight always takes an odd number of moves, and a like color square an even number of moves. Thus the answer for one side is would have to be the odd number 5.
Map out the path on one side (5 moves) and then just duplicate it 3 more times moving east to west or north to south - again elemtry. So I can not see that as a GM test, A GM test would have to be much more complex - I know nothing about the game and found it very easy (and a waste of my time)
What was much harder was todays visualization test (yes I went back) where he gives you a square ie f3 (imagine your knight there) and get it to a6 in the shortest path- no board no peices only what you see in your head.
I only got 2 correct out of 8 in 600 seconds - that is a tough one!!!
Try it guys - it is not easy.
This guy is probably nuts - and I doubt that this stuff makes you any better, but it is kinda entertaining to see what the old man has dreamed up next - great entertainment for a beer.
Oh. So you were serious when you said that all he charges is a beer? I thought that was either a joke or just his first sample class before he starts charging you money. I don't think you can be real picky if your are getting lessons for almost free.
Lots of coaches like to teach that "what color is this square" thing. Danny Rensch does that. He said he learned it in a Russian chess school.