The Chess Rocky Story
Can I train a rusty 48-year-old Master to face the likes of Nakamura?
I’ve been playing and teaching chess my whole life. Yet, I’m about to take on a project that is the ultimate David vs Goliath story, and I need your moral support.
My buddy, Mike, asked me to prepare him to face Super-GMs, the likes of GM Hikaru Nakamura.
The problem? Mike is a 48-year-old Master who hasn’t played OTB chess in over 10 years. Right now, he’s your average adult improver who casually plays online bullet while drinking beers.
Yet, when Mike told me he wants to compete in the Daniel Naroditsky Memorial over the July 4th weekend in Charlotte — and that he’s the literal 75th seed out of 75 players — I couldn’t say no. After all, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him to face absolute monsters like Sindarov and Hans Niemann, as well as legends like Boris Gelfand.
The list of pre-registered players is quite impressive!
Once I said yes, my next task was to design the training regimen that will get him ready for the grueling 11 rounds of blitz.
I need to overhaul his openings, his tactics, his technique, and pretty much everything else… Except maybe his choice of beers.
Luckily, I’ve got 30+ years of experience teaching and playing chess. In fact, I’ve faced Nakamura at least 9 times according to my database. And somehow, I still have a plus score against him!
Phase one of training was to put Mike across the board against my friend — a 2300 FIDE Master who’s of a similar age and also somewhat rusty. I needed to build Mike’s confidence while diagnosing his weaknesses.
He passed the test by winning the match 5.5 to 3.5! But looking closely at the games he lost gave me pause…
Loss #1 as White:
White has two minor pieces for the rook and is totally winning. The engine evaluates this at around +3 and says pretty much any move wins. So, how did Mike lose this in just 10 moves? He was trying too hard to checkmate Black’s king, got super low on the clock, and went for a dubious sacrifice that completely backfired.
Loss #2 as White:
As you can see, White is up a pawn and completely dominating the game. He found the winning shot 10.Nb5! Black has to lose the exchange due to the Qxd7 checkmate threat. Yet, somehow Mike started to drift. He took too long on every decision, walked into a simple tactic, and lost.
As you can tell, I have my hands full. Yet, despite the obvious rust, poor time management, and horrible technique, I saw a spark of genius as well.
Black to move and win:
Many players would rush to recapture with 20…Rxf8, which is perfectly fine. But why not finish the game on the spot? I was so proud to see Mike slow down and play the brilliant intermezzo 20…Qh3!! White has some spite checks on f7, but the mate is unstoppable. Let’s go!
Towards the end of the blitz session, Mike started to get his groove back and played some really good games.
This is one of my favorites, with a nice checkmate at the end:
He also showed some endgame spark in this one:
Here, Black is about to take on h3 with dangerous counterplay. Yet, Mike found a brilliant way to activate his bishop with 46.c4! Black took on h3 anyway, but ended up losing a piece after 46…Rxh3 47.Bxe5 fxe5 48.Rd7+ Kf6 49.Nxg7. From there, Mike converted with ease by bringing his king to e4 and eventually checkmating Black’s king with Nh5#.
The Road Ahead
So, the foundation is there. Mike has the tactical vision and the endgame chops, but we have a literal mountain to climb when it comes to time management, technique, and stamina.
Next week, I’ll be sharing Phase 2 of our training: The Opening Survival Guide. I’ve already started teaching him the Hungarian Dragon that I introduced in my last post. He’s loving it and hoping this will be our secret weapon for Charlotte.
You don’t need to be a Master playing in the Daniel Naroditsky Memorial to use these tools. I designed the Tournament Starter Kit so that any adult improver can reach comfortable, strategic middlegames where your intuition — not your calculation speed — wins the game.
When you upgrade to a paid membership, you get instant access to:
The 2026 Tournament Starter Kit: My complete “Old Man” repertoire (Catalan, Jobava London, Hyper-Accelerated Dragon, Nimzo-Indian) designed to be learned in just 40 minutes, featuring full video lessons and PGNs.
The Openings Vault: A permanent library of “Gambit Killers” to help you stop falling for common club-level traps.
The Tournament Survival Guide: My 1-page PDF of gold nuggets from 35+ years of OTB play.
Let me know in the comments: If you had to sit across from Hikaru Nakamura with the black pieces tomorrow, what opening are you playing to survive?
Make sure to subscribe to follow Mike’s journey to Charlotte. It’s going to be a wild ride!
Fun story, lets go Mike.
We’re rooting for Mike!