My sisters and I practically grew up around a chessboard: we traveled to tournaments together, attended classes, and played on weekends. As we grew older, chess opened us to other opportunities: new friends, travel, and as my parents soon realized, improved my memory and analytical thinking.

Nevertheless, my mother had trouble finding quality chess coaches at reasonable costs: coaches were either cheap and did not teach well, or vice versa. Furthermore, there were language and social barriers.

 

I (and my sister Elina) turned my hobby into work and took on students of my own. For the past 15 years, I have been building on a toolkit of behavioral psychology and professional development techniques, as I've refined my own teaching style. Today, my students range from 500 to 2000 rated, are aged 6 to 30 years old, and have themselves won numerous state championships.

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When the world went online during the COVID-19 Pandemic, I was faced with more students than I could handle. For the students I could not access accept, I started looking for other qualified chess Masters that were:

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1. Qualified

2. Passionate about chess

3. Had a growth mindset

4. Empathetic

5. Did not break the bank.

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After months of interviews, I hand-selected a handful of coaches I wanted to work with, one of which, Zahar Efimenko, became my own coach. 

 

As I continued to receive coaching requests, I realized that there was no concierge service that matched qualified coaches to students, and worked with them to constantly improve. Thus, Mindful Masters Chess Academy was born.