NM Ryan Velez

My name is Ryan Velez and I am based in Louisville, KY, USA. My profession is being a full time chess coach. I teach chess full time and I make videos on YouTube on chess.

I am a National Master with the US Chess Federation with a peak rating of around 2220.

I have been teaching chess since I was 13 years old. In many ways, I think I am a better coach than player. I spend a lot of my time learning how to teach chess concepts better. My book Points of Struggle was designed to help beginners up through about 1200 level players. I am currently writing several other books, too.

My background is in psychology and a Masters in Psychology.

I think my best skills with teaching is breaking concepts down so people can understand them. I use an approach where I like to break a concept down into 5 parts and help students ascend through each part.

I am also very good at teaching groups of students who have different levels, simultaneously. I think a lot of people struggle to do that but the system I have used over the years has been pretty effective.

I am also very knowledgeable about chess books. I have around 200 that I have read and I am always reading chess books. Chess books are one of my favorite pass times.

Right now, I am writing detailed blog articles to help people improve: lichess.org/@/RyanVelez/blog

If I receive enough support, I will consider streaming to expand the ways in which I teach people for free.