Have you ever "coached" someone to victory

[David Blower]

So your only junior in the chess club is in an ECF graded game and has actually managed to get down to a rook + king v king ending.

Your just hoping that the "coaching" (I use the term loosely, although it is true even though I'm not really a coach) that YOU yourself have provided in previous weeks actually pays off.

Even though to everyone on this board the rook + king v king is something everyone knows and is taken for granted, but it might have been difficult when you first learned it.

The junior in question has managed to do it with ease in practice. However you know you can't actually tell them what to do when it comes down to the actual game.

To say I felt pleased that my "coaching" had actually paid off as he had remembered what to do would be an understatement.

So this thread is basically for you to say when someone has used a technique that you have directly shown them, to actually win a game! It can be as low level or as high a level of chess as you like. (I know Rook + King v King is not difficult, but you never know if your teaching someone else well until they can do it themselves.)

[Ray Sayers]

Yup, it's a nice feeling.

Oddly, both my daughter and one of the boys I teach both had this in their next (but different) tournaments!

They both did it really quickly and no fuss. I try to keep it as simple as possible in 2 steps:

1. If you can make the box smaller, do it!
2. If you can't, protect your rook with your king!

Seemed to work!

[Alex Holowczak]

I once managed to earn someone I was coaching a draw.

We were playing in the same congress, and I walked past the board to see how the player's game was going. I was asked how I did in my game. "Draw", I said quietly. At this point, the player's opponent put his hand out, and said "Yeah, I'll accept a draw." The position was clearly drawn, but still...

[Arshad Ali]

This is going back well over a decade. My 13-year-old boy had suffered a couple of defeats as white playing the Benoni against an expert (ECF strength roughly 175). But the expert was relying on the old Nunn book whereas I -- evil laughter -- had acquired the freshly published Vaisser book (How to Beat the Benoni and the KID with the Four Pawn Attack). This I used to coach my boy in the labyrinthine variations of the Four Pawn Attack. It's impossible to come up with the analysis at the board and the expert duly succumbed. More important than the individual victory, however, was the collapse in the expert's self-confidence: the defeat was enduringly traumatic for him. And as a consequence he went down again in his next encounter with my boy. Most satisfying.

[Stewart Reuben]

Danny Wright had black against van der Weide in the Hastings Challengers. The Dutchman hadn't faced the Scilian in the tournament, but he had responded to 1 c4 with e5 and played a main line.
So I showed Danny, already much stronger than me, a line in the Accelerated Dragon. They followed the preparation and Danny won. He said it gave him great confidence in the game. He proceeded to qualify for the next year's Premier. There he drew with Smyslov.
Years later I had black against van der Weide and, as a joke, played the same line. He smiled, improved on his play and, I think, this time managed to draw.

[Peter Walker]

When my son was quite young, about 8 IIRC, he showed considerable promise. I recall one rapidplay (30 min) tournament in Ipswich in which he was playing well out of his age group. He had a level position but failed to accelerate as his flag began to lift, and lost on time to a girl about twice his age.

Before the next round started, I advised him to play at 1 move per minute until he had 5 minutes left. After that, for the next 2 minutes of his time, I told him to count to 10 silently while he thought, and then move. For the next 2 minutes, count to 5; for the final minute, count to 3. I figured that he would be unlikely to have to play more than 80 moves!

It worked like a dream. He was paired against an England junior about 4 years his senior and conducted a blistering mating attack whilst his flag was hanging. Smug dad time!