Advanced Chess Private Tutoring With NM Michael Takahashi!

Ages 6-18

Live 1-on-1 Lessons

When working with me through this class, we will be discussing more complicated strategical and tactical themes, using many interesting tools that I have learned over the years. You will get a deep dive approach into how I train every day!

Michael Takahashi

Live video meetings

Meets on demand

60 min

About Learning Overview Teacher Reviews

What's included

Meets on Demand

schedule meetings as needed

60 mins

per session

Teacher support

Homework

4+ hours per week. I will generally assign every student a lichess study that contains games or positions to review. Usually, I won't give kids more than one study, as most of my homework is quite challenging and will take quite a bit of time to complete. When completing the homework, don't feel pressure to solve everything correctly or to complete all the positions! The main goal is that you can get some time to engage with the subjects, and then the following week I can see the areas of improvement.

Assessment

Through our work together, I will be separating your progress through the proficiency of different skills. Once I feel like any student has successfully shown proficiency in all the skills in a specific level, I will move them on to a harder skill set.

Class Experience

US Grade 2 - 12

Intermediate - Advanced Level

In my opinion, private chess classes are the best way for any chess player to rapidly improve their skills! Throughout our work together, I will teach your child how to improve their over the board play and individual chess training, as well as giving them skills and homework to complete every week. 

We will be focusing on key ideas and skills in the openings, as well as any new innovations in chess theory. For the middlegame, we will be working heavily on tactics as well as positional play, using some of my favorite positions from Grandmaster games as well as my own games. For the endgame, we will be exploring commonly known concepts at the intermediate level, but continue to build on the knowledge that the student already has. 

I like to be as engaging as possible with every student I have, tailoring each lesson to their needs, as well as letting them lead our discussions about positions and ideas. That being said, I expect each student to commit a good amount of time outside of our class to improve their game, as I will only likely meet with a student once or twice per week, meaning the majority of their improvement happens outside our lesson setting. 

Happy Learning! 

Michael Takahashi

Learning Goals

The ability to understand the key positional factor in each position, while also being able to handle dry, equal positions in which we need to display a high level of accuracy and patience

The ability to understand tactical elements and how calculation and tactics go hand in hand. I hope to give my students a solid baseline understanding for how to look for tactics in any given position, as well as sharpening their pattern recognition.

Other Details

Learning Needs

If your child has ADHD, or any learning disorder, no worries! I will try to make our sessions as engaging as possible through numerous activities and techniques, such as simuls, puzzle racers, and more!

Parental Guidance

N/A

Pre-Requisites

For anyone who wants to take my class, I recommend you either have at least an 1000 over the board chess rating. I will make exceptions for any kids who are extremely talented, but in general anyone lower than 1000 might have trouble.

Supply List

The only real supply you will need is a functioning lichess account. We will be going through all of our lessons on lichess as well as providing homework through that platform.

External Resources

In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:

lichess.org

Sources

N/A

Meet the teacher

Michael Takahashi

Joined March, 2025

Profile

Teacher expertise and credentials

I am a USCF National Master and chess coach from Iowa City, Iowa. I have been teaching chess to players of all ages since 2022. Many of my students were selected to the US World Youth Cadet teams, as well as many others appearing on the top 100 lists for their age in the US.