Coach’s Corner: Viktor Neustroev – Chessable Blog

Viktor Neustroev’s journey in chess began long before he became a coach. It started in his hometown of Novosibirsk, Russia. He was one of the best junior players in his region. But it wasn’t until 2013, when his daughter Alisa was only four years old, that he discovered a passion for teaching.

Neustroev was coaching a small group of young children and brought Alisa along. At first, she simply observed. Soon, however, she became one of his strongest students. By age eight, she had won the Girls Under 9 Championship of Siberia, a very competitive regional title.

Since then, Neustroev has trained students of all ages and levels, nurturing both the skills and love for the game. His students’ achievements are remarkable: sisters in Hong Kong capturing national U9 titles, a young English player representing the UK at the 2025 FIDE World Schools Team Championship, and many others hitting special milestones. For him, coaching is not just about wins and titles; it is about helping players set goals, develop healthy habits, and overall experience the joy of improvement.

Now based in Buenos Aires, Viktor has taken his teaching to a global stage as a content creator, sharing his knowledge with chess enthusiasts across continents. And as a Chessable author, he brings the same insight and care to his courses as he does to his long-term students.

In this interview, he shares helpful advice for chess players:

What is your chess coaching philosophy?

My coaching philosophy rests on two pillars: joy and individualization. First, students should genuinely enjoy learning and playing—curiosity and fun fuel progress. Second, every player needs a tailored approach.

I run workshops, group lessons, and create recorded video courses to cover universal fundamentals. But before I begin with an individual student, I study their recent games to identify strengths and weaknesses. From there, I build a personalized training plan—then refine it regularly based on new games and measurable progress.

Enjoying the process is essential. Many players want to improve but hesitate to compete for fear of rating losses. That’s a common trap. I encourage students to play, take risks, and treat results as feedback: play games, accept the rating swings, and draw the right conclusions. Improvement follows when we pair consistent practice with honest game analysis and a positive, growth-oriented mindset.

Suppose a player has only 3 hours a week for chess training. How should they spend their time?

With only 3 hours per week, focus on the highest-impact activities:

1 hour — Tactics.

Do such puzzles that match your rating, not random ones. Each should take ~3–10 minutes. Organize them by a tactical motif so you learn to recognize tactical features of a position, not just calculate. I illustrated this concept in my course Train Your Tactical Vision.

1 hour — Play 1-2 serious games.

Avoid bullet/blitz. Choose a longer time control (at least 15+10) so you can think properly about candidate moves, plans, and time management. Your brain should work at a full capacity. This is how chess players become better.

1 hour — Analyze your games.

Start without an engine. Identify critical moments, where things went wrong. Suggest better moves and calculate them. Once the whole game is analyzed, only then check with an engine to confirm or correct your conclusions. Use database or model games if needed.

What is the biggest factor for improvement for players under 1200 (Chess.com)? Under 2000?

Players under 1200 should definitely work more on tactics, trying to improve their calculation skills. Should they learn basic principles—piece development, central control, and planning? Yes, of course, but it’s even more important to focus on their decision-making process: how to find candidate moves, what to expect from their opponent, and how to evaluate positions that may arise in order to choose the proper candidate move.

As for players under 2000, the overall study approach should be different. Of course, at any level a chess player should keep working on tactics. However, this is where opening knowledge and middlegame planning play a significant role. To improve the latter, I recommend analyzing GMs’ games played in the openings of your repertoire. This is how you can discover typical plans; then, once you reach a similar position in your own game, you are likely to remember a few common plans, so your task will be to choose the one that suits your position best.

What is your preferred way to improve at openings? What’s the approach to chess openings that you try to teach your students?

Working with a coach or studying a structured online course. Just memorizing moves is not enough. Instead, I explain the logic behind the moves: the main goals, what each piece is doing, and what to expect from the opponent. Remembering even part of this logic creates “anchors” in memory, so if a student forgets the exact move order, they still recognize the key positions and can reconstruct the correct sequence.

What is your preferred way to improve at the endgame?

Learning key theoretical positions is a must. However, endgames are mainly about planning and calculation. What helped me personally was working with a master: we set a position from a book, played it twice (once as White and once as Black), and then compared our games to the model game to understand why our plans fell short.

With my students, we usually analyze typical endgames—and we also study their own endgames from recent games. Recently, I conducted a series of group lessons devoted to endgame technique. I focused on typical ideas and concepts across different material balances, and it seems to have helped: several students shared games showing real progress in the final stage. Their play has become more purposeful.

Is there anything else you would like to share with ambitious chess improvers?

My overall advice is to have a training plan. Follow this plan and adjust it regularly. How to create such a plan? Analyze where you struggle: is it openings, miscalculations, or faulty plans? If you can’t do this yourself, ask a coach. And, of course, consistently work on your calculation skills.

Chessable Courses by FM Viktor Neustroev

To date, Neustroev has created six courses, with half focusing on openings and the other half on tactics and calculation skills.

Check out his author page!