Thomas_RR
Titled Player
Diamond Member
Chess.com Coach

Hi everyone! My name is Thomas Roussel-Roozmon and I’m an International Grandmaster from Montreal, Canada. I’m a professional chess coach. I enjoy teaching any level or age. You can contact me at [email protected]

I have been teaching chess for over 20 years.

Many of my students started working with me around 1500-1600 strength and made it to 2200-2300 within a few years of coaching.

I absolutely love endgames.

Playing endgames. Studying endgames. Teaching endgames.

I’m a positional player with a strong focus on strategical understanding and endgame skills. As a kid, I spent countless hours studying games from Karpov and Kramnik.

I’ve had many people who contacted me because they wanted to work specifically on improving their endgame skills. I’m always very happy when that happens, because that is my specialty and working on endgames does not feel like work to me!

I’m also a very good communicator and I love working with people. Chess can be a lonely game sometimes, so working with others is a great way to stay motivated on the long term.

My teaching philosophy is that the ultimate goal is to try to be as complete a player as you can be, so studying every aspect of the game is important.

I always start out with a new student by analyzing their recent games. That gives me a good feel for the student’s playing style, as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

Then I establish a plan to improve the different aspects of their game. We decide together on an opening repertoire that will best suit their playing style.

We will work on everything. Openings, middlegames, endgames, positional play/strategical understanding, tactics/calculation. But be prepared to do a lot of endgames!