Junior coaching ... keep it simple !
By Phil Adams (3Cs' chief coach)
His ability as a chess coach ? Â Just look at 3Cs' records !!!
21 October 2026
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CHESS ON THE WEB
You can keep up with events in the chess world by regularly checking out these chess news websites:
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TWIC is an invaluable resource for all strong or ambitious players. Every Monday night or Tuesday morning Mark Crowther provides a FREE file in PGN or CBV format of all the available tournament games played in the previous week !
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There is also a website focusing on chess, technology and IT: https://www.chesstech.org
Click on the approprite link above to access the desired website
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At the free https://lichess.org/broadcast you can also follow tournament games ‘live’ and download the games in PGN.Pairings and results for most chess events can be checked at https://chess-results.com/
Also well worth checking out is the weekly column in the Guardian newspaper by the veteran chess journalist Leonard Barden (read about him here: https://en.chessbase.com/post/leonard-barden-2 )https://www.theguardian.com/sport/chess
A chess news website with a US slant, often with annotated games: https://new.uschess.org/
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WHAT'S NEW IN CHESS
There is a new version (19) of the free strong chess engine Stockfish:
https://stockfishchess.org/download
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The September 2026 edition of the free ECF magazine ChessMoves is available:
All the annotated games are also available to view on Lichess, allowing you to follow and
study them online or over the board. You can also download the complete PGN directly from
the Lichess study. Click here for the September Lichess study.
Included are both a standard double-column version and a mobile-friendly single-column
version, so you can choose whichever format suits you best.
Single-column (mobile-friendly) version: http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2026/09/ChessMoves-September-26-one-column.pdf
Double-column version: http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2026/09/ChessMoves-September-26.pdf
For Android users: Some default PDF viewers may not fully support links in PDFs. If you
experience any difficulties, please try opening the file with Adobe Acrobat Reader, available
for free on the Google Play Store
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Two big current chess events are coming to an end.
The US Championships contains some of the world’s top players. There is coverage at the
usual chess news websites as well as at https://new.uschess.org/
The European Club Cup is taking place on 17-23 October in Budva, Montenegro, bringing
together 108 teams in the open section and 22 teams in the women's competition. In addition
to the many elite players, the incredible British youngster Bodhana Sivanandan is playing.
Here’s how she beat a Women’s International Master:
https://www.y
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Believe it or not, in the 1970s and 1980s there was a popular weekly series on chess on the
BBC! It was called The Master Game and was a long way ahead of its time in the way it
presented grandmaster chess to the viewing public. Many of the programs are available now
on YouTube and are still very instructive! Just go on YouTube and search e.g. for The
Master Game chess.
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GM Noel Studer presents his advice on reducing the number of blunders you make:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9vKzNJAp3U
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GM Mauricio Flores shows two recent games on the theme of “how to make practical
decisions”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpZt8Su7_tg&t=29s
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FM Dalton Perrine discusses how to play when you are up material - it’s not as easy as you
might think! https://chesschatter.substack.com/p/convert-material-advantage-chess
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GM Karsten Müller is a great expert on the endgame and frequently explains interesting and
instructive endgames at the Chessbase website. A complete list of all Müller’s endgame
articles is available at https://en.chessbase.com/tagged?tag=Endgame
you can learn something useful from every one of these!
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GM Mihail Marin is regarded as an outstanding commentator and writer on chess. He has
now set up a channel on YouTube and new videos are being added at least weekly:
https://www.youtube.com/@GMMihailMarin
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Very useful material for already strong or ambitious players!
Some advice from IM Mateusz Bobula about how to improve your results in online blitz or
rapid: https://www.chess.com/blog/matbobula/7-mistakes-adult-improvers-are-makingand-how-to-fix-them​​​​​​​​
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WHAT'S OLD IN CHESS
Learning how to improve at chess need not cost a lot of money. As well as the traditional way – using good books, both ancient and modern - there is now a huge amount of chess information available for free online. This ranges from very instructive articles by strong players to YouTube videos posted by enthusiastic but fairly weak amateurs. From time to time it's good to check out interesting items that have been 'bookmarked', but perhaps not followed up. That's why some time ago I introduced this section to the newsletter.
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A huge database of games played on Lichess is available here:
https://database.lichess.org/
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Chess.com has now made its own huge database of online games available:
https://www.chess.com/news/view/announcing-chesscom-games-database?page=3
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Here GM Greg Serper examines possible ways to make use of the chess.com database:
https://www.chess.com/news/view/announcing-chesscom-games-database?page=3
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Younger players in particular should find much of interest in a series of videos by GM
Mauricio Flores in which he describes his rise from promising junior to grandmaster:
https://www.youtube.com/@MauricioFloresGM/videos
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As well as having written some instructive courses for Chessable, GM Arturs Neiksans, for many years now one of Latvia’s top players, has a lot of free instructive content on YouTube. I can particularly recommend his commentaries to his own standard and rapid games. Recently he has published an extensive review of the theory of the Dragon variation of the Sicilian defence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEMB92zeM7s
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These websites
https://chesstempo.com/game-database/
https://www.openingtree.com/
https://www.snoopchess.com/
might be useful to help you prepare for a future opponent.
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Many players suffer from poor time management during their games. Here are some
suggestions for making the chess clock your ally, instead of your enemy:
https://www.chess.com/blog/smarterchess2/the-smarter-chess-top-12-challenges-11-theclock-is-a-resource-not-an-enemy
Another useful article on time management:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/long-think-wrong-think
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FM Viktor Neustroev offers us his advice on avoiding blunders:
https://www.chess.com/blog/Tricks-of-Chess/blunders-on-autopilot-recaptures-routine-andobvious-moves
And here he suggests a thinking routine for players who wish to improve:
https://www.chess.com/blog/Tricks-of-Chess/think-like-a-strong-player-the-five-stepalgorithm-behind-every-master-move
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A new tactics trainer which features puzzle positions from recent tournaments:
https://chessranga.com/tactics
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A collection of tactics puzzles from the games of the late GM Daniel Naroditsky:
https://www.chess.com/article/view/naroditskys-best-bullet-tactics-with-rensch-hambletonandrea-botez
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An instructive article about not rushing to punish passive play:
https://www.chess.com/blog/Tricks-of-Chess/punishing-passive-play-dont-attack-suffocate
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At his website the Swiss trainer GM Noël Studer offers a lot of free practical advice for
players who are trying to improve at chess: https://nextlevelchess.com/articles/
Studer has now also started posting short advice videos at
https://www.youtube.com/@GMnoelstuder
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The young Austrian GM Felix Blohberger frequently adds material at his YouTube; it’s
usually very instructive, although some of it is quite advanced:
https://www.youtube.com/@febloh/videos
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This YouTube channel can be strongly recommended:
https://www.youtube.com/@chesswisdom/videos
The presenter talks us through a large collection of classic games, based on the widely
accepted idea that “classic games are much more instructive than the modern ones, as it is much easier to follow the strategic plans and their gradual implementation”.
New games are added frequently.
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There are many instructive games and chess topics covered by Danish GM Sune Berg
Hansen at his YouTube site. In particular if you play for or against the Caro-Kann Defence, there are lots of ideas discussed here:
https://www.youtube.com/@GMTalks/search?query=Caro
And here he shows a line which might refute the ancient Ponziani Opening, which has
recently been given a new lease of life online, where it has been recommended by some
popular YouTubers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdT9ycCcPZ0
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The team of masters and grandmasters at Modern Chess produce detailed courses that are mainly suited for fairly high-rated players. https://www.modern-chess.com/
But recently, as well as interviews with strong players they have started posting some
samples at their new YouTube channel which are quite instructive in their own right!
https://www.youtube.com/@modern-chess
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FM Dalton Perrine has some interesting material at his Chess Chatter website, including this useful one: https://chesschatter.substack.com/p/how-to-blunder-less
And here he discusses how to play when you are up material:
https://chesschatter.substack.com/p/convert-material-advantage-chess
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There is a lot of interesting and instructive free content at https://chessmood.com/
Of course, this is offered in the hope that you will sign up for one of their paid courses, but nevertheless the free material at the site is well worth exploring, for example here's how they suggest dealing with a range of dangerous black gambits against 1 e4:
https://chessmood.com/courses/#the-refutations-of-abracadabra-gambits
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The English GM Matthew Sadler is an excellent chess commentator and an expert in
working with chess engines; he explains many instructive games at his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconRoadChess/videos
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ChessEnigma Academy is a relatively new presence on YouTube, with several titled players as analyst and presenters. Their paid courses are expensive but there are a lot of free sample videos that are instructive in their own right:
https://www.youtube.com/@ChessEnigma_Academy
For instance, 3Cs players who like the Caro-Kann will probably find this video by GM
Miguel Santos interesting: https://www.youtube.com/@ChessEnigma_Academy
For already strong or ambitious players, a useful sources for keeping up to date with the latest developments in your favourite openings is https://www.chesspublishing.com You have to subscribe to be able to read or download the detailed annotations, but the free-access pages can be useful in their own right, for pointing you towards the most important recent games in each opening, which you can usually find at TWIC or in an online database and then download for study. There is also a “forum” (at https://www.chesspub.com/cgibin/chess/​​​
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Some suggestions for self-preparation
The Covid health crisis gave many chess players more free time to practice their skills, yet, although the pandemic has largely abated, such self-assessment and training is still required in order to maintain a level of play in readiness for when regular competitive matches restart.
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Hence, the following are some suggestions to prepare for such occasions ...
1: Learn or revise basic endgames from books such as Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual, How to Play Chess Endgames by Müeller & Lamprecht or 100 Endgames You Must Know by De La Villa. The work you put in now, learning and practising basic endgames, will be useful to you for as long as you want to keep playing chess and (unlike openings) it will never go out of date!
2: Play through practical endgames, using books such as Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky, How to Play Chess Endgames by Müeller & Payeken or the excellent books by Glenn Flear or John Nunn.
3: Play through as many of the great games of the past as you can, collected in books such as The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games.
4: Learn and practise some strong main-line (or at least “respectable” secondary) openings and defences.
5: For relaxation as well as practice:
a) play some on-line blitz at 3’+2” or 5’+3”, but use these games mainly to practise your openings – save each game in PGN as you go along and look at them again later, especially in respect of the opening;
b) solve puzzles or endgame studies e.g. at chess.com, maybe using “puzzle-rush”.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
“Chess is like body-building. If you train every day, you stay in top shape.”
GM Vladimir Kramnik,
World Chess Champion 2000-2007.
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“When you open a book of classical games, don't think of it as simply a collection of old chess games. Think of it as a collection of lessons from some of the greatest chess minds who ever lived.”
GM and blogger Greg Serper
3Cs' head coach Phil Adams providing valuable instruction to 8 year old Zayeem Alam as well as his dad Shahed who also plays for the club ..... we shall refrain from discussing which one of them is in more need of Phil's coaching !
How do you learn tactical patterns?
My first and absolute top recommendation would be to read these two books one after the other (available from the 3Cs' library):
1) "How to beat your dad at chess" teaches you all the most important checkmating patterns.
2) "Chess tactics for kids" teaches you all the most important chess tactics patterns....
.......and then read them again!
3Cs often ask other people to assist with coaching at the club so as to gain different points of view. This photo shows FIDE Master Alex Longson (grey top near the door), himself a product of the 3Cs' coaching system and a former England junior international, who has taken charge of many of the club's coaching sessions. Alex also organises the Delancey UK Chess Challenge along with his wife Sarah who also assists at the club.
Ideas by 3Cs' senior coach Phil Adams on how to specifically make new young players feel welcome at a chess club as wel as tips on coaching methods for them and which can be downloaded via this link....
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Although the attached notes were written several years ago (ie: ask your parents if you don't understand what Phil means by a "VHS tape" !!!), the ideas are still very much relevant and have proven to be very successful at 3Cs for generations of young players at the club.
A suggested thinking routine after your opponent has moved ...
1: Write the move down.
2: Check it is a legal move (Some people may try to cheat or bluff you).
3: Is there a threat ?
4: Can I ignore the threat ?
5: What are all my options ?
6: What seems to be my best option ?
7: Give your proposed move a final "blunder check" before touching the piece.
Learn these simple rules ...
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a: Â Often the best moves do TWO good things; most notably the double attack (eg: a fork)
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b: Â Always look at the forcing moves
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c: Â f2 and f7 are the weakest points in the first part of the game
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d: Â In the opening, don't move the same piece twice without a good reason
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e: Â When ahead on material, exchange pieces not pawns
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f: Â When losing on material, exchange pawns not pieces
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g: Â With the safer king, keep the queens on
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h: Â When under attack, try to exchange queens
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i: Â When attacking, invite everyone to the party
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j: Every pawn move creates a weakness.
(ie: Don't move a pawn when stuck for a move - try to improve your worst piece instead)
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k: Chess is two-way traffic - always look at what the opponent is trying to do
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