FM Aras Vardanyan

24 year old chess enthusiast. I became a FIDE master in 2023 and am looking forward to going further towards the IM title, so far I have gotten one IM norm. I have also finished a bachelor in criminology and have done some related practices. I've been playing chess since I was about 7 years old, but I took a "break" when I was 12. I came back at about 17 and haven't looked back since. I've also been coaching people of all ages for about 5 years now and I've recently received the official FIDE instructor coaching title, for which I am very proud. I have also recently co-founded a business selling personalised chess training plans for those who do not need constant coaching, but are fine with having a personalised plan which gives them direction chessodoro.com/

I've been very active in tournaments of all time controls aswell as online chess for the last 6 years and I've been steadily improving. I am a big fan of ultra-dynamic openings such as the benko gambit, benoni defence, najdorf defence, modern defence, KID, etc. I believe playing such openings leads to many mistakes from which we can learn from. This approach has helped me reach a fairly high rating in a relatively short amount of time (1944 to 2220 FIDE classical in a year) and it's what I recommend that my students do.

I've had experience teaching groups of kids that are just starting out aswell as groups of adult beginners and amateurs alike. Now I only do private lessons with a handful of students ranging from 1400 to about 1800 FIDE. I've also had experience being a second to a few grandmasters.

Currently working on a platform which can be used by chess players to create a training plan for themselves, or buy an individualised one from a chess coach. Have a look around: chessodoro.com

I specialise in chess dynamics, tactical play, calculation, as well as opening preparation. Fluency in the english language is also useful to explain the ideas in a clear way.

My approach to every student is different, but one thing always stays the same - at least once a week we analyze the students' games which were played in long time controls (20+10, 30+20), mostly on lichess.
For players that are in the beggining of their chess journey, we start by learning the fundamentals, so that later there are no clear gaps in one's knowledge of the basics. Later, together with the student, an extensive training plan is created which is followed not only during the lessons, but also individually by the student.