ChrisL64

A few days ago I joined the Chess Dojo. I’ve heard so many good things about it over the last six months that I likely would have joined, despite the fact that the training plans themselves are freely available for anyone to browse and use on their own with a free account.

First, the three “senseis” are not only highly esteemed members of the chess community, generally, but each are high on my own list of awesome chess folks as well:

• Jesse Kraai achieved a PhD in Philosophy¹, earned his GM title at the advanced (in chess years) age of 35, and actually stopped playing chess for a three years while he wrote Lisa: A Chess Novel².

• David Pruess, an excellent teacher a mainstay of chess.com video lessons and explainers for years before departing for better climes³, is an excellent teacher by any measure, but learning he also has aphantasia—but is still a strong IM who can play blindfold chess—was a key factor in my deciding to play chess again.

• Kostya Kavutskiy⁴ is also an excellent teacher whose presence in the chess world has been quickly growing thanks to his acumen, ability to explain chess in a way mere mortals can understand, and one of the calmest demeanors this side of Rosenstan.

Second, I do love me a structured program that can bring more order to my training and studying, but my reason for joining, rather than just using the plans on my own, is the aspect I’m also the most nervous about: the community. Befitting its name, the Chess Dojo requires⁵ sparring, analyzing, playing, and engaging in “post-mortems” with other Dojo members. I’m hoping this part of the program will be the prod I need to overcome my reluctance to actually play in addition to the studying I enjoy so much.

As they say in the Dojo, “Let’s gooooooooo!"