One of my subscribers beat me - here is how
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[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to Next Level Chess Podcast. I'm Grandmaster Noël Studer, and yes, I'm sorry I missed last week's podcast. But from now on, we go back to weekly podcasts. And today I want to talk about one of the reasons I actually missed last week's podcast was because I was filming some YouTube content for my fiancée, Alessia Santeramo.

If you don't know her YouTube channel yet, go check it out. It's called It's. The link is in the description and so we were filming these YouTube videos in London and I had a lot of conversation with people trying to improve their chess. Well, at least that's what they said they wanted to do. So while filming these videos, usually Alessia would play and I would stay behind the camera and people come up to me and I had a conversation for like a couple dozen times.

Somebody would come up to me and say, Oh, you're a grandmaster and a coach. [00:01:00] Can I ask you a question about chess improvement? I said, yeah, sure, go ahead. So they say, I'm rated anywhere between 1000 and 2200. That's usually where these people are rated at. And I would like to know how I can best improve my game.

So they wanted some chess improvement advice. Now. I have a dozen podcasts, but also 150 plus articles. So yes, I have some opinions on chess improvement. So I would tell them focus on the basics, solve tactic puzzles, play games, analyze your games, focused on the biggest errors, improve them, And stay consistent in your training routine.

And halfway through when I said this, when I started my answer, I saw the facial expression just change. They went from like this hope that I would give them the magic pill of getting better at chess and they started to look extremely [00:02:00] disappointed. Most of them tried one more time and they said, Is there no secret to chess training?

Like nothing you can recommend to be quicker, faster, you know, some hidden resource, the best book, the only thing you need to study. No secret. So they said, Oh, okay. And they walked away. And that really happened. Yeah. A lot of times. And what I realized with these people was they would then walk away, go to somebody else and start talking about their favorite book, their favorite YouTuber, their favorite videos, their favorite, whatever.

So they were talking all the time about chess improvement, but most of them were stagnating because they That's why they were actually asking me this question. They wanted the solution, but they weren't ready for the simple, but not so easy solution. Instead, they wanted the magical solution. By the way, if you're listening to this podcast, you should know [00:03:00] it.

There is no magical solution. So I'm getting slightly annoyed by this, but then I had a very nice interaction. So I'm talking to a guy, his name was Ethan, and Ethan tells me, okay, there are two girls, two sisters somewhere in this you know, casual chess club, and they are fan of your articles and they want to challenge you for a game.

I was very happy. And I said, yeah, sure. Let us meet them and they can sit down and play me for a game. So at some point, Emma and Eunice are coming up to where we have the video where we filmed the games and they are saying, hi, they were very, very shy. And they start talking to me and telling me, thank you so much for your articles.

They help a ton, but you really feel. I really felt that they were super, super shy, timid, you know, not talking as much and probably also a bit nervous. So we were sitting down and I play [00:04:00] against the lower rated sister first. I only heard that after the game that she was the lower rated sister. So we sit down, she plays white, she goes E4 and just.

Goes with a gambit straight out of the opening. And I really felt that usually when we, you know, we record this videos for Alessia's channel, it's good to have some talking going on. So I asked some questions trying to interact with with my opponents, but Emma was, you know, not ready for talk. She was all determined, focused willpower, everything you you know, I could really feel.

Her intentions and her strength in chess and how serious she is about chess improvement. So she wouldn't answer a lot, but she answered on the board. She attacked me and I thought, okay, you know, somebody that attacks me, probably they can't defend. So I sacrificed an exchange, got some compensation, but it faded out.

And I actually lost the [00:05:00] game. And to my knowledge, that's the first time I lost a game against a subscriber of my newsletter or core student that I played over the board. Well, I don't play over the board a lot, so there are a few chances for my opponents as well for my readers. So I lose that game and I was super impressed.

And I learned that, well, she was the lower rated of the two sisters. So, I play against the other one. And in this game as well, I'm having black, I try out something else. I played the Sicilian. So I thought, okay, the sister is so aggressive. Probably the other sister is aggressive as well. So what do I do?

I try to play the French. Well, goes into the main line you know, takes some critical line, tries to attack my King and somehow I managed to swindle her really. I'm sure there must have been a checkmate somewhere. I didn't put in the game to check with any engine, but I'm pretty sure I was lost at some point to won that [00:06:00] game, but it was super, super impressed.

And by the way, if you want to see those games, Alessia likes a lot when I lose games on her channel. So, she will probably post them again. You can check out Alessia's YouTube channel. It's either at Alessia Santeramo on YouTube, or you just click the link in the description. So back to the point, I was very, very impressed with both sisters and it got me thinking I had all these interactions with people that were very, you know, outgoing, very confident, seemingly confident, you know, talking about chest improvement all the time and coming up to me and asking questions.

But the problem was they were actually stagnating. They were not showing the results. And then on the other hand, you had these two sisters, Emma and Eunice, and both of them seemed super strong. Now, I don't know their actual rating, but I would say they are probably somewhere around 2300 or something like this.

And, and [00:07:00] they were, you know, determined. They put in the work and because they know my things, right, they read my newsletters, they study my, my stuff. They didn't have even one question actually. So the information is all out there. The question is, are you doing the work? So it had me thinking that there is a big difference between talking about improvement and actually improving.

So I want to ask you, my dear listener, are you just talking about improvement or are you actually improving? Putting in the work, because the reality is in the best case scenario, at some point, this podcast right here should be useless for you. You should be able to have most of the information that you need, and then you would need to just sit down to train yourself.

To plan your training, to do it the right way, to use the knowledge that you gained from my podcast, my newsletters, other people sharing [00:08:00] advice. And then it's just about putting in the work. And that's what I think those two sisters are doing. They are gathering information, but then they also work. Put in the work, it's just way too tempting to just gather information, gather information, you know, hear this podcast, listen to this read this book, do this, do that, but never actually sitting down, analyzing your own games, solving tactics and actually getting better at chess.

So that is your reminder to maybe get a little bit less chess improvement advice. If you're stuck, go sit down, play your games, analyze them, do the tactics, and you will see that soon you don't have to talk about which book is your favorite one, but actually you can talk about how you won X amount of points in a not so long period of time because you finally Okay, guys, that's it from [00:09:00] me for this episode.

Short reminder, if you like this podcast, I'm sure you'll also like my email newsletter. I send it out once a week on Friday. It's completely free. You can click the link in the description to sign up. You will get chess advice, just like this podcast right here, a little bit earlier and in written form into your email inbox.

You can also check out my blog, nextlevelchess. blog, that's where I have all my older articles. They are evergreen, so I'm writing about stuff that will be still you know, useful in a few years. And then, obviously, if you want the best of the best, you can have a look at my courses. I have two courses out right now.

You will find the link to those in the description. And last but not least. If you enjoy this, please tell your friends about this podcast. It's, you know, if it's helpful to you, probably it helps your friends as well. That would help [00:10:00] me out a ton. Thank you so much for listening and see you next week.