IM Lawrence Trent

34 years old, London/Berlin, been involved with chess for the better part of 20 years. Most people know me from my commentating exploits (I have been the host commentator for some of the biggest tournaments in recent years, both online and live, including World Championship Finals), as well as the vast array of training materials I have produced for the likes of Chessbase, Chess24 and various other outlets. I was also the creator of the most listened to chess podcast in the world, the Full English Breakfast (www.thefeb.com), and was the manager of the 3rd highest rated player of all time, GM Fabiano Caruana.

25 years+ playing, International Master, winner of numerous international tournaments. 2 GM norms, still aiming to get that 3rd!

Over 15 years+ experience. Have taught absolute beginners to strong masters. I give both individual and group lessons, live and online.

Some of my most acclaimed work can be found here (with more to shortly be released!):

http://shop.chessbase.com/en/authors/lawrence_trent?_new=False

chess24.com/en/learn/videoseries?filter=trent

www.chessuniversity.com

Check out my Wikipedia page for more information:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Trent

Also, be sure to follow me on Twitter where I often post chess related information

twitter.com/lawrencetrentim

I pride myself in being a skilled orator and being able to get across ideas in a simple and precise manner. I believe this by far the most important quality a trainer should have. My classes are always interactive and fun, and I always aim to keep my students engaged throughout a lesson so that they get the most out of it. I also endeavour to challenge my students as much as possible as I find this is the way they can get maximum value from the lesson and see maximum improvement.

In the first session, I like to gauge exactly what my student's ambitions are. What is it YOU want to achieve. From there, we will devise a plan together to see exactly how you can achieve your goals.

My lessons consist of the following:

1) Analysis of your games - this is crucial to identify recurring mistakes, identify key weaknesses/strengths, establish how to plug the big holes in your game.
2) Analysis of master games - By looking at how the top players play, we can learn a lot. I find this to be a very useful and inspirational exercise.
3) Solving Exercises - Once we look at a particular theme/topic in a lesson, I like to get my students to solve a position based on that theme. This can either be done during the lesson, or afterwards as homework.
4) Playing a game! - Students often ask if we can play a training game and then go over it to see exactly what can be improved. I find this to be both fun and extremely useful for the student.

Naturally there are various other methods we can for our lessons, but whatever we do I will consult with my student first to make sure he/she is happy and comfortable with what we have planned!

Classes are done via Lichess (study feature) and a VOIP client (normally Skype or Google Hangouts).