Looking for a training partner

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Nicky Chorley
Posts: 174
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2011 3:26 pm

Looking for a training partner

Post by Nicky Chorley » Sat May 15, 2021 7:42 am

Hope everyone is doing well. While there's no OTB chess, I'm looking for someone I can play some regular (once a week roughly) 15+10 games with for training. Ideally, someone stronger than me (my last ECF rating was 1255E).

Give me a shout if you can help me out.

Jonathan Bryant
Posts: 3452
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 3:54 pm

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Sat May 15, 2021 11:05 am

Have you tried twitter? There's a thriving adult improver group on there. A much larger pool of potential opponents than you'll find here.

Towards the end of last year/start of this I played a series of training games against an opponent I bumped into on twitter that I'd never have met otherwise.

Nicky Chorley
Posts: 174
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2011 3:26 pm

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by Nicky Chorley » Sun May 16, 2021 6:59 am

I haven't, only because I usually avoid social media! Are there accounts you'd recommend following/tweeting at to advertise?

Thanks for the suggestion, Jonathan.

Jonathan Bryant
Posts: 3452
Joined: Sun May 11, 2008 3:54 pm

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Sun May 16, 2021 9:46 am

Nicky Chorley wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 6:59 am
I haven't, only because I usually avoid social media!
Very sensible for the most part - it can easily become a blackhole into which your chess improvement time can be sucked. You definitely can see that happening on twitter.

BUT

... I would say for the aspiring adult improver refusing to use social media at all - after having worked out how you're going to avoid the aforementioned time-suck issue - is akin to refusing to read opening books. You *can* do it and improve but you're really limiting your potential for no obvious reason.

Twitter accounts I'd recommend for chess improvement/seeking training partners:-

There are so many that I'm going to forget some important ones but here are just a few suggestions.

@Berlin_Endgame - me. Not so much because I'm great to follow but because if you go to my account you can have a look at who I'm following and that will be a good place to start.

@wmiltti - Matt Fletcher, frequent visitor to this parish. Recently suggested to me that if I want to improve my blitz rating I could try winning more games. But has helpful advice and tips too.

@TheWN72 - I played my training games against this chap. I think he lives quite close to me in London, but we'd never have met and got to play each other without twitter

@chessatlas - another guy I met and played a couple of training games with via twitter

@Bennyficial1 - Ben Johnson of the Perpetual Chess podcast. Worth following him and listening to his podcast. Especially the adult improver interviews.

@NealBruceBC - a very good role model for adult improvers in terms of approach


There are so many more. I could be here all day. Have a look here for my following list.

https://twitter.com/Berlin_Endgame/following



Also look out for the #chesspunks hashtag which a lot of adult improvers use when they tweet about chess.

There's also @chess_dojo which I've never really got into (purely through lack of time) but they do a lot of stuff online and have a kind of meeting place where people can get together and play - both formal tournaments and informal games I think.


Hope that helps.

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MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by MJMcCready » Sun May 16, 2021 9:59 am

I think on chess.com you can also go into settings and choose the strength of opponents you want to be paired up with ( I think).

Ross Brennan
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:38 am

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by Ross Brennan » Sun May 16, 2021 11:00 am

MJMcCready wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 9:59 am
I think on chess.com you can also go into settings and choose the strength of opponents you want to be paired up with ( I think).
Not a great expert on this, but if you go to chess.com Live Chess, click Custom Challenge, then there are several parameters you can set. These include the rating range of your opponent measured against your own rating. The permitted range is from -25 to -400 below your rating, and from +25 to +400 above your rating. Presumably, once you have set these parameters and then clicked Play, your challenge is then available for anyone who meets the parameters and is looking for a game.

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IM Jack Rudd
Posts: 4818
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:13 am
Location: Bideford

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sun May 16, 2021 6:22 pm

I'm happy to play training games against you if you want. My chess.com profile is https://www.chess.com/member/jackrudd

Matt Fletcher
Posts: 271
Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:42 pm

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by Matt Fletcher » Mon May 17, 2021 12:10 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 9:46 am

@wmiltti - Matt Fletcher, frequent visitor to this parish. Recently suggested to me that if I want to improve my blitz rating I could try winning more games. But has helpful advice and tips too.
Are you telling me my advice didn’t work? Your rating would suggest otherwise...
Jonathan Bryant wrote:
Sun May 16, 2021 9:46 am

There's also @chess_dojo which I've never really got into (purely through lack of time) but they do a lot of stuff online and have a kind of meeting place where people can get together and play - both formal tournaments and informal games I think.
The Dojo guys are good, it’s fairly US-based but there are quite a few followers in the UK and Europe.

The meeting place Jonathan mentions is Discord: https://discord.com/invite/sUUh8HD

They have a ladder tournament to play serious games, as well as a ‘find a training partner’ subsection. I’m sure you’d find someone of the right sort of strength on there, they have followers from beginner to IM and stronger.

Nicky Chorley
Posts: 174
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2011 3:26 pm

Re: Looking for a training partner

Post by Nicky Chorley » Sat May 22, 2021 7:01 am

Sorry for the delay in responding - been away from the computer most of the week with other things. Thanks folks!

Jonathan - those suggestions are great; I'll take a look and get round to making an account.

I tend to use the rating limits on both chess.com and lichess though I do worry that online ratings are inflated (my puzzle rating on lichess I think is something like 1900 and I'm nowhere near that strong), so it's hard to judge.

Jack - that'd be great, though I suppose you might not find the games much of a challenge! I am https://www.chess.com/member/nchorley.

Thanks also Matt. I've used Discord before for other things, so will look at Chess Dojo there.