Rock Troll's School of Chess

*** Congrats to my students! ***

Hey everyone,

I'd like to congratulate all my students on their excellent results in the British Championships recently!

GM Ameet Ghasi (2501)

We've been having a really successful and enjoyable few years working together with Ameet getting the GM title last year. Unfortunately Ameet didn't quite get the result he wanted but was consistently playing on the top boards and still scored a very respectable 6/9. My favourite game of his was the last round win against GM Mark Hebden which showed how much he's improved at playing more aggressive theoretical lines with White.

https://s2.chess-results.com/PartieSuche.aspx?art=36&id=6062994

Mahin Rughani (1906)
2012

Although Mahin is only a young teenager he has a remarkably mature and diligent style with careful calculation and continually works hard at improving. This clearly paid off when he played in the Major Open and had a brilliant result coming joint 6th with 6.5/9 gaining 66 points for his FIDE rating and qualifying for the main British Championships next year! In particular I really liked his game with Black against Ali Reza Jaunooby (2082) which he won in style with excellent prep and middlegame play to be in the running for qualifying for the Brits:

https://s2.chess-results.com/PartieSuche.aspx?art=36&id=6061039

Yashwardhan Shankar (1761)
2013
Yash is quite young and inexperienced at playing in big tournaments but has been working really hard at improving and this showed in his brilliant result in the Major Open scoring 4.5/8 and gained over 100 points for his FIDE rating! I really enjoyed his win against Sathya Vaidyanathan (1915) where he played a solid positional opening with Black and converted it in the endgame:

https://s1.chess-results.com/PartieSuche.aspx?art=36&id=6054572

It's a real pleasure working with them and seeing them do so well. I hope all of them continue to improve and get great results in the future!

Please enjoy watching the humiliating ritual sacrifice of the Rock Troll to appease the goddess Leela with an autopsy report by GM Danny Gormally.

Can Tristan Cox beat Leela a Queen up? Tristan was kind enough to take on the challenge. How did he do over five games?https://lichess.org/@/LeelaQueenOdds

*** CALCULATION COMPETITION WINNERS ***

Congratulations to Filippo Bortoletti and Anh Nguyen who both found most of the relevant lines to show that Black is winning in the position from my final round game.

You can play through the solution online here:
https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=8zg8cRtNbP5tAEynrr+20GENQht5XOhyDIrrIUmOQ8u11lg+6k2YYbj7uzoLMFaz

Hope you enjoy it!

Very happy that I got to be on YouTube with Grand Master Danny Gormally yesterday to analyse my recent win in Leamington and discuss a little about coaching Grand Master Ameet Kumar Ghasi. I made a lot of mistakes as it's my first time doing this but great to get the ball rolling. Please stay tuned as me and Danny will be doing more videos together which I hope you'll find interesting and will help you improve!

Super Coach Tristan Cox on his Leamington Spa win and working with Ameet Ghasi [email protected]

*** CALCULATION COMPETITION FOR FREE LESSON ***

I'm finally back to competitive chess after another two year break. I had a very rough start shaking off the rust but happy that I just won the Leamington Open joint with two other players. In my last round I played one of the most insane games I've had in a long time so I wanted to share the critical moment.

In the position below it's move 22 and Black to play. Can you find Black's best try and what's the objective evaluation of the position? I'll be giving a free trial lesson to the best answers - not just one move for Black but some variations please!

Hint: there is one absolutely critical variation which finishes around move 30.

***PLEASE PM ME, DON'T POST ANSWERS IN THE COMMENTS ***

I think my 8 year old student might be a reincarnated Zen master. I explained how a rook pawn endgame will end in a draw by repetition with the two kings going a6-b6-a6 and a8-b8-a8 etc. "What if two people were playing this position but they didn't know about the draw by repetition rule so they just kept playing those moves, and they played that one chess game their entire lives and then they died."

Unbelievably happy and immensely proud of Ameet Ghasi for finally becoming a Grand Master with his final round win today in the Fagernes International. It's been incredibly interesting and rewarding working with him for the last few years and seeing him start to really fulfill his potential. Check out the last game where he crushed a 2550 GM!

Fagernes International Autumn 2024 | GM • Round 9 9-round Swiss | 100 min / 40 moves + 40 min + 30 sec / move | standard | Fagernes, Norway | Jumabayev, Sasikiran, Urkedal, Stremavicius

*** Online Chess Classes for Adults & Kids (Outside of Vietnam) ***

Hey everyone, if you're interested in online classes please get in touch.
Best wishes,
Tristan

*** Chess Classes for Kids, Online & Offline ***
Hey everyone,
If you're interested in chess classes for your children please get in touch.
Best wishes,
Tristan

Hey everyone, if you're interested in chess lessons online or offline please get in touch!

I'd like to congratulate my student Mahin Rughani for winning the Blackpool Intermediate with 4.5/5 last weekend versus 1700-1800 opposition and also qualifying for the England U11 trials! He has a lot of potential and is very mature and hardworking for someone so young. I'm really enjoying working with him and can't wait to see him continue to improve and achieve more successes!