A chess coach matched to you

Chess.sg is Singapore’s top provider of 1:1 chess lessons, group lessons, camps, and official rated chess tournaments. We’ve conducted over 5,000 lessons to date in students’ homes, online, at our centre, and in MOE & international schools, offices, preschools, and student care centres.

With an in-house syllabus and a team of 70 coaches islandwide, including MOE-certified coaches, chess masters, national arbiters, and chess storytellers, we provide quality chess sessions that suit your schedule, location, and equipment needs.

To be a strong chess player, one needs to master each of these 5 categories. Your coach will assess the student’s current abilities in each of these areas and devise personalised plans to improve in each of them. Thus, each lesson will help to build up one or more of these areas of chess mastery: 

• Calculation strength: The ability to see multiple moves ahead by imagining chess pieces moving in the student’s mind. 

• Pattern recognition: The ability to quickly and intuitively recognise various tactical patterns (“motifs”) that appear during a chess game. 

• Positional understanding: The ability to get an advantage by arranging one’s chess pieces in certain ways. 

• Opening repertoire: Obtaining an advantageous position or a position that suits one’s playstyle in the first few moves of the game. 

• Time management: Managing one’s time properly, balancing between finding good moves and maintaining an advantage “on the clock”.

The methods of teaching each of these areas are different, but here are some examples of what may be covered: 

1. The coach may walk you through quick puzzles to improve your pattern recognition. 

2. The coach may walk you through difficult puzzles (5-20mins per puzzle) to improve your calculation. 

3. The coach may recommend and teach you certain openings based on your playstyle and strengths. 

4. The coach may teach you a positional concept and create some positional puzzles on the spot for you to solve. 

5. The coach may assign you to watch certain Youtube videos that target your weaknesses

6. The coach may play chess games with you and explain your mistakes, targeting all areas at once. 

You will be assigned a coach based on the following factors:

1. Location 

2. Your preferred lesson slot 

3. Student’s rating (The coach will be rated at least 400 points higher than the student) 

4. Other preferences on a case by case basis (e.g. gender, specific student needs) 

You will start off with a discounted trial lesson with our assigned coach, and if the lesson goes well most students purchase a 10-lesson package thereafter. You may also request for a trial with a different coach if you are not satisfied with the initially assigned coach. 

You may request for a change of coach at any point. 

In our experience, both online and in-person lessons are equally effective. We recommend online lessons due to the following reasons: (1) ability of coach to draw arrows and quickly load up a variety of chess positions to illustrate concepts (2) easier to reschedule (3) more affordable as we cut down on travel time. However, if the student is very young (6-7 years old) and/or unable to focus during online lessons, or prefer a more personal experience, in-person lessons would be preferred. 

1:1 lessons typically take place at student’s homes or at our clubhouse (weekdays before 4pm only). If the lesson takes place at your home, an open space such as the living or dining room is preferred.

Yes, these coaches are available but recommended only to students with an online rating of at least 2000 on chess.com. Most students below that rating will progress just as quickly with our experienced coaches, at a more affordable rate. Please contact us if you are interested in a titled chess coach. Do note that these coaches are not Singapore-based and are available online only, as Singapore does not have many titled players. 

There is no fixed duration. Most students have one lesson per week, however we are able to accommodate more or fewer lessons per week, or reschedules/postponements due to commitments that may arise during the week on either the student’s end or the coach’s end. 

While we do not charge for cancellations made at least 5 hours before the lesson start time, students are kindly requested to inform the coach about lesson cancellations as early as possible. This helps our coaches plan their schedules efficiently. 

• Cancellation by student less than 5h before the lesson -> 50% lesson fees payable

• Cancellation by student less than 1h before the lesson is to start or no-show by student ->100% lesson fees payable 

We provide 1:1 coaching for ages 6 to adults. We do not recommend chess coaching for students below 4 years old as learning progress will be very slow. Students aged 4-5 should consider our group classes where the teachers are trained to handle this age range. Students aged 6 years old will have lesson duration of 1h instead of 1.5h.

Yes! Siblings of the same chess level often enjoy substantial savings by taking lessons together. As it’s tougher for our coaches to coach multiple students at once, do note that an additional fee of +$20/lesson (for 1.5h lessons) or +$15/lesson (for 1h lessons) applies.