CM Adriano Nunes Cavalcante

I’m Adriano Nunes Cavalcante, a 25 years old university student from Brazil. I was born in the beautiful city of Fortaleza and was raised in my beloved Caucaia. Chess has always been a hobby for me, but it took me — literally — very far! I learned the rules of the game back in 2017 during my senior year of high school, but a few years later I attained the title of National Master and FIDE Candidate Master. Sadly, I never had a coach, so I know very well the struggles of one training on his/her own. I use the same account here on Lichess since I learned the rules of the game, you can see by yourself the progress I made on my own.

I’m a very extroverted and easy-going person, and a bit talkative too; hopefully, you’ll see this as qualities of mine! I have millions of hobbies, especially traveling (I’ve visited 14 out of 27 Brazilian capitals thanks to chess), while my ultimate goal is to become a university professor. However, I learned a few years ago that it doesn’t matter how much you plan, life will always find a way to surprise you; it’s like being caught with an opening novelty in chess tournaments. Hopefully, I’ll find my way to my dreams, I wish the same to you!

Although I learned to play chess in 2017, only in late 2021 I could play in classical tournaments. Until then, before the pandemics, I mostly played in rapid and blitz events, scoring well in my age group in my state but starting out badly against the adults. In my first classical OTB tournaments I was already at 2400+ in rapid and blitz here on Lichess, the adaptation didn’t go as smoothly as I planned, but I still beat a number of strong titled players along the way. My main achievements as a chess player are:

- National Master in 2022 and FIDE Candidate Master in 2025, both due to my performance at the FIDE Zonal 2.4 back in 2022.
- State blitz chess champion (Ceará) in 2022 and state rapid chess champion in 2024 (played in 2025).
- U17 state chess champion in 2017, in the year I learned chess.
- Brazilian University Team Chess Champion in 2021, Jogos Universitários Brasileiros, alongside FMs Julia Alboredo and Guilherme de Borba. Held online.
- Represented Brazil in FISU America in 2021, alongside FM Guilherme de Borba, WIM Kathiê Librelato and FM Julia Alboredo. Held online.
- Brazilian University Team Chess Champion in 2022, Jogos Universitários Brasileiros, alongside Iran Santos, both representing Universidade Federal do Ceará.
- Bronze medalist at the Jogos Universitários Brasileiros 2025.
- Three-time winner of the Fortaleza Blitz Chess Marathon, in 2024 and 2025.
- Played in several open tournaments, with the best result being 6,5/10 at the Floripa Chess Open 2023.
- Biggest upset so far: win as Black over GM Nihal Sarin (lichess.org/essCCjrXcIkr)

To be honest, my experience as a coach is very limited, because I always felt that I was lacking credentials. I even felt like a fraud for not being able to repeat over the board the success I was having in online chess! Despite all of this, some people, including foreigners, reached out to me looking for lessons. I decided to charge the lowest price, 25 USD per hour, but some generous students paid a lot of more on their own so I could play in FIDE rated events. Yes, my experience as a coach isn't really expanded, but I’ll do my best to make it up for the investment anyone decides to put on me. I believe I’ll fit better with the 1500-2100 audience on Lichess, but I'm willing to try with anyone who reaches out to me.

I’m currently studying Letters (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_of_Letters) at the Universidade Federal do Ceará, but I’ve also studied Law for a while in the same university. I’m fluent in English and I started to study Spanish on my own. I’m also a graduated Muay Thai and Capoeira student since my teen years, in a time where I got official certificates of Photoshop and reached semi-professional level of video editing (Sony Vegas, now MAGIX Vegas) while completely self-taught — now you see where “FX” comes from! I already started to dive into the cooking world, “Chef Adriano” is a work in progress too! I know quite a bit of Brazil due to my trips, I’ll be very happy to share some cool stories with any person in the world. As I said earlier, I have millions of hobbies, there is a lot more to discuss!

The areas I’m definitely stronger are openings and endgames, as weird as this might sound. I love positional chess and tend to shift the game towards calmer waters, looking to outplay my opponent from there. My repertoire is designed to limit risks, and my results clearly reflect that my opening work is paying off. If you’re struggling with 1. d4 with either color, for example, I think I can be quite useful. I’m also an established rapid and blitz chess player in my state, but I’m slowly making my way to 2100 FIDE and beyond in classical as well.

Time management issues are something I never had, but I definitely had those moments where I played excessively fast. I strongly believe in psychological work in order to become a stronger chess player, I never hid my shortcomings in this difficult game, and my plan is to help anyone to fight their own demons. By the way, I love chess history and classical games from the past, so I’m more than ready to share some chess culture!

I’ll talk with the students, find out more about them both as a person and as a chess player. I’ll test how strong their goals are and offer some advice in that aspect. Strong motivation is essential if you’re aiming at, say, 2000+ online and titles, I want to make sure you’re on the correct path. Next, the students and I will go through their games, both online and OTB, in order to spot some weaknesses and prepare some lessons based on those. I can also annotate games, play training games and help with opening preparation for tournaments, but this has to be discussed beforehand.

Based on the student’s ratings and previous study, I will select and nominate chess materials they should study and train with, and after a while we’ll see how they are going. I don’t intend to have any long-term students, I prefer them to quickly develop to a point they will need stronger and more experienced coaches. I set reasonable milestones and I don’t expect to reveal the next Magnus Carlsen, nor do I want anyone suffering in a game where they are supposed to have fun, I hope the students are completely aware of what I’m offering.

PRICING: Important detail here, naturally. Due to my limited experience as a coach, I decided to place 25 USD per hour for a lesson (or 100 BRL if you live in Brazil), which can be more flexible depending on how many lessons the student wants. I don’t mind the lessons going a bit further whenever necessary, of course. Deeper work that requires more time, like the aforementioned annotated games and opening preparation for tournaments, are evaluated and priced based on an honest discussion with the student. I don’t make a living from chess, so any money I make as a coach will be only used in my own chess improvement, like chess tournaments.