1. When did you learn chess and who taught you?
I learnt to play chess at the age of 8. My father taught me how to play and I remember our endless matches. Of course, I lost all the games at that time. However, it didn’t stop my enthusiasm. I loved the game and read the two chess books we had at home about 10 times each 
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2. When did you begin playing tournaments and how did you do?
Then I joined a local chess club. After a year of training, I reached the 1st category and became a champion of Sevastopol (my hometown) amongst schoolboys. I enjoyed the game and my rating increased quite quickly.
3. When did you begin making legitimate progress in your game and How?
At the age 13 after winning several international tournaments, I was awarded the title of International Master.
I think it’s very important to play in STRONG tournaments. The most natural (and therefore the most powerful) learning tool for all humans is imitation. That’s why it is so important to compete with strong opponents and to adapt to their playing level.
Finding a good coach is a very important goal for the same reason. At the same time I know how hard it is to find a real teacher. A good coach should be able to see your situation from YOUR point of view. This is a rare gift, but otherwise he/she will not be able to help you.
4. Can you recall a specific turning point? (a game, event, working with a coach, etc..)
After getting the IM title I started to play mainly in adult tournaments and realized that it’s not so easy to win. I trained hard for about 6-8 hours a day, had many coaches and read a lot of chess books. But I suddenly realized that a lot of new information didn’t make my game any stronger.
The coaches offered me a lot of different training systems, but they didn’t know the answer to the simple question, “How to progress and play better chess?” No one could say to me: “I know exactly what to do and I can guarantee your progress”.
Since that time, I started to think about the right way of training and improving myself. That’s why I took an interest in psychology. It explains how the human brain works. After understanding some principles of the thinking process I realized why the usual way of training is so ineffective.
So, I’ve started to create my own system of chess education.
5. What are your top book recommendations for beginner to intermediate players? (<2000)
There is an excess of chess material nowadays. They offer you hundreds (perhaps thousands) of various rules. However, they are quite useless. No one can keep hundreds of rules in their head whilst playing. Plus you only have 3 minutes per move (and often even less).
That’s why learning tons of chess books usually confuses a beginner player.
Instead you must improve your THINKING PROCESS. This is the key! If you understand several base PRINCIPLES of a chess game – you will find normal moves in most positions. By the way Lasker wrote about it in his chess manual.
I created a special course called “The Grandmaster’s Secrets” (LINK). It contains the most essential information that every chess player must know.
It may seem outlandish, but a lot of players gained 200-300 rating points after learning this course. Maybe you are wondering how this is possible. Let me quote an old saying: “A wise man is not the one who knows everything, but the one who knows the right things”.
6. What are your top book recommendations for advanced players? (2200+)
First, let’s define what areas are the most important on this level.
The first important aspect is “extra skills”. On 2200+ level everyone knows what a weak square is. Thus if you want to win, you must have something special, something unique, something that your opponents don’t have.
I have included these special techniques in the course “How to Beat Titled Players” (LINK)
Another important direction for your improvement is your strategic understanding. Most weak players play in similar style: go forward, try to attack and hope for tactics. The main characteristic feature of strong players is their strategic understanding, their planning skills.
Unfortunately most modern books don’t cover this topic. Millions of computer variations are definitely not what you need.
I recommend the books of the Old Masters: Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik… Choose the books with text explanations (not just variations).
Also you may like my course “Your Winning Plan” (LINK). There I give you a complete system of planning on a GMs level.
7. How did you become a GM? (What tournaments, did you have a trainer, etc..)
First, let me give you a practical hint: play in round robin tournaments. It’s quite annoying to get +4 (+5) in a swiss tournament and not to get an IM/GM norm because of the lack of foreign players in your opponents.
I’ve seen a lot of 2550 IMs. Their results are good, but don’t match all the standards for getting a norm.
In most round tournaments you ONLY ( ) need to play well.
) need to play well.
8. What was your exact study regimen when you were working towards GM? (What exactly did you study, what study materials do you recommend, how much were you working with a trainer to prepare, etc..)
This is a very big question. In general you need to create/improve your thinking system. A more exact answer requires time.
I’ve created a special course about this topic: “Self-taught Grandmaster” (LINK)
It gives you the whole training plan from beginner to expert level.
9. What is next in your chess career – what are your aspirations as a player/instructor/promoter/organizer, etc..?
Some time ago I’ve decided to focus on teaching, so I am a full time coach now.
My dream is to help everybody to achieve their chess goals. There was a time in my chess career when I was stuck on the same rating for several years. I know how hard it is to get better at chess, especially when you don’t have a coach, live in a small city and can’t afford regular participation in strong tournaments.
The worst thing is wasting the TIME OF YOUR LIFE on futile efforts. I want to help chess players avoid this irreplaceable loss.
I am hope that with my courses this will become a reality for every chess enthusiast around the globe!
My next plan is to translate my courses to different languages so that everybody can learn them. Of course I’ll keep making new lessons for my students as well.
10. Nature or Nurture: Do you think top chess players are born with a natural ability/gift or do they become so talented through hard work and the right environment?
You say “chess talent” when you see another person who plays better than you, and you can’t explain why.
People use the word “talent” as a lame excuse for their bad results. It’s easy to say: “I don’t have enough talent”. It’s much harder to train regularly and to do it in the right way.
I created a free lesson “Chess Talent” (LINK). There I analyze this topic in detail.
11. How do you feel about cheating in chess? (specific deterrents/punishments?)
I can say this: “Guys! There is another way to improve your game!”
Chess is a Royal game (the game of the Kings ) and cheating harms this great image.
) and cheating harms this great image.
I think FIDE has enough measures in place to prevent cheating. Actually they make this work quite well.
12. Who is your favourite player and why?
I’ve had many chess “heroes”.
It’s important to focus on a certain topic/element for some time in order to master it. That’s why I focused on certain players for a necessary time period and tried to adopt his playing style. By the way, this is a quite powerful training method.
I’ll mention just a few names of my “chess idols”: Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal, Karpov, Larsen.
