The Chess Coach Companion Advanced Syllabus by GM Ivan Sokolov Chessable

Find Your Edge with 5 of the Best
Chess Trainers from Europe

The Chess Coach Companion: Advanced Syllabus is a self-study course for the intermediate improver. It explores the key areas of strategy, tactics, and endgame play — where you can outsmart the increasingly tougher competition at the 1700 to 2200-level.

Originally designed as a teaching guide for trainers…

The Chess Coach Companion pinpoints the areas of chess which — when studied properly — can lead to huge rating dividends for the class A or B player.

The Chessable edition transforms the syllabus to a full-fledged improvement course. A selection of the material is presented in nearly 14 hours of video and 397 MoveTrainer® exercises, which you can study at your own pace.

Inside, you’ll learn from:

💯 Ivan Sokolov — Peak 2706 FIDE and peak world #12… raised talented youngsters into top 50 grandmasters… and coached the gold-winning Uzbek team at the 44th Chess Olympiad.

💯 Antoaneta Stefanova — Women’s World Champion from 2004 to 2006… led the Bulgarian women’s team to the 2023 European Team Championship… and helped nurture the next generation of grandmasters through the Chessable x FIDE Academy.

💯 Efstratios Grivas — Silver medalist at the 33rd Chess Olympiad… coach of the victorious “team world” at the US vs. The World: Match of the Millenials… and a 6-time winner at the Annual FIDE Awards for trainers.

💯 Lasha Janjghava — 2-time Georgian champion… winner of the 1990 Hastings International Chess Congress… and a regular instructor at European Chess Union (ECU) youth camps sought for his strategic insights.

💯 Adrian Mikhalchishin — A GM-coach with almost 5 decades of excellence… trained the gold-winning USSR team at the 9th European Team Championship and 29th Chess Olympiad… coached Anatoly Karpov, Judit Polgar, and other legends of the game.

Drawing insights from over 70 years of collective experience — they direct your attention to those chess skills that deliver…

The Best Elo Bang For Your Training Buck!

For example:

In the section on strategy, you’ll dive into the finer points of planning and positional play… which tactics-obsessed players at your bracket miss.

You’ll see:

💯 Why direct attacks out of the opening often fail at the 2000 to 2300-level. Instead, improve your chances for a successful breakthrough by playing on both sides of the board.

When you control the kingside and
queenside, you get to decide where to
break through and how to win

💯 How to cement your control of the center. So you can drum up a crushing initiative on the flanks.

💯 Positional sacrifices that exploit the opponent’s “greed,” giving you an unshakeable grip on the position.

You’ll walk away with an arsenal of game-winning sacrifices,
including this pawn gambit that plants an eternal knight on e5

💯 Enjoying a slight pull? Stop wasting it on desperate tactics! Instead, follow the ultimate winning technique in the second section of the course.

💯 The 4 types of pieces you want to trade off, and the 5 you want to keep to preserve your advantage.

💯 Plus, how to use prophylactic thinking to strengthen your attack… set up a strategically won game… and avoid blunders.

Next, you’ll sharpen your tactical vision and calculation skills — with the attack on the enemy king as the “focal point.”

You’ll pick up timeless attacking patterns, while learning how to:

💯 Take out the uncastled enemy king, guided by the 3 rules of attack.

💯 Rip the king’s cover with pawn sacrifices, while eliminating defensive pieces with alignment tactics.

💯 And ensure you land the first blow by delaying castling.

14…h5! turns up the pressure on the white king! After studying
tactics section, delaying castling will be one of the more
sophisticated attacking techniques in your kit

Now, the higher you climb the rating ladder, the more common endings become.

So in the final parts of the course, Sokolov and company explore some of the most common endgame scenarios you’ll encounter… plus the precise technique for snatching a draw or clinching the win.

💯 Down material? Save the half-point with the sticking method and the “long rook and short king” technique.

💯 Guarantee the promotion of your passed pawn using Karpov’s maneuver… or invade with your king after an umbrella pawn-sacrifice.

💯 And break down the defender’s resistance in rook-versus-bishop endings.