FM Mario Gavilán Díaz

I'm Spanish FM Mario Gavilán Díaz, aged 29, currently 2300 fide rated. I've been playing chess since I was a kid, but most of the time not as my main activity. However, in recent times I'm devoting most of my energy to both make progress myself and help other people to reach their goals. Chess is so beatiful, that I'd like to share my knowledge and experience with you.

My main goal now is to become IM in the near future. My rating has increased considerably in the past year, being very close to score my first IM norm. Along my career I've had some successes, like winning the Andalusian championship (the region where I live), finishing among the 20 best players in Spain and beating and drawing several +2600 players. And I've noticed the following: the more I work, the better results I get. It's simple.

i've been a chess coach for about ten years now. I've taught all kind of students, from a very basic level to 2100-2200, including all ages as well. I like to see chess as a whole, and therefore I pay attention to different aspects of the game: work must be done on openings, middlegame and endings. I love chess classics, as in order to understand chess today we need to know what happened before, studying the games of great chess players of the past. Another crucial aspect is to analyse your own games, trying to find the mistakes that are repeating in order to eliminate them. As many GMs and chess coaches have concluded, the bigger progress is made from analysing your own games.
All this is done during my lessons, in a very personalised way and following a working plan. Homework is given to consolidate what has been learned during the lesson.

My best skill is my devotion to chess. I really love the game, so transmitting my knowledge is something that I really enjoy. On top of that, I'm very hard working and take chess seriously, as work is the key to success.

Luckily, I've been trained myself by very strong GMS and IMs, and thanks to that I've picked up the best methodology of all of them. As described before, my goal is to work on all different aspects of the game, paying special attention to game analysis to develop your skills to the maximum. Memory is important of course, but understanding what's happening on the board is far more relevant. And all that without forgetting the heritage of the classics. One cannot understand the play of Magnus Carlsen if he doesn't know the games of Botvinnik.