CM Koosha Jaferian

My name is Koosha Jaferian, I am a 26-year-old FIDE Candidate Master and Canadian National Master with a current FIDE rating of 2231 and a CFC rating of 2358 (CFC Peak 2507). I am originally Iranian but I currently live in Toronto, Canada. I recently obtained my MSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto and I worked for one year at Intel Corporation as a Software Engineer. Mathematics has always been my favorite course in school and I am a Bronze Medalist in the International Mathematics Competition (IMC) and also Iranian National Math Olympiad. I managed to finish 3rd among more than 184000 participants in the Iranian Nationwide University Entrance exam.

I started playing chess at the age of 5. Until the age of 12, I managed to win a lot of national and provincial Youth Chess Championships ahead of people who are currently strong Grandmasters. However, I didn't take chess seriously in most of the years after that and focused more on my education. I am starting to take chess more seriously again since the start of 2021.

As a hobby, I usually play Blitz / Bullet online, play Ping Pong, and watch Football (Chelsea Fan).

Between the ages of 7 to 12, I took chess seriously and managed to win the Fajr International Chess Tournament with the participation of all Iranian top players and also players from Azerbaijan in the U10 age group twice in a row. I also finished 2nd in the Iranian youth chess championship at the U8 age category. I also had two experiences in the Asian Youth Chess Championships where I finished 10th and 9th respectively.

During my years in Iran, I played in many Iranian top-level open tournaments and also the Iranian Super League. I have played all of the top Iranian chess players over the board and have wins or draws in at least one of the three time controls (Classical, Rapid, Blitz) against most of them, including Firouzja, Maghsoodloo, Tabatabaei, Ghaem Maghami.

Since I moved to Canada, I managed to win my first open tournament in Canada with a 4.5/5 score higher than everyone (including a GM and an IM). www.chess.ca/en/ratings/t/?id=202109033&p=174318

I managed to surpass the 2200 rating and obtain the CM title in the Sunway Sitges tournament where I increased my rating by 44 points and had a 2350+ Performance: chess-results.com/tnr577676.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=IRI&turdet=YES&flag=30&snr=159

Some of my other recent best performances are Canadian Transnational with 2384 FIDE Performance (chess-results.com/tnr777508.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=IRI&flag=30&snr=45), and Sunway Sitges Open 2023 with around 2500 Performance in the last 6 games (chess-results.com/tnr830639.aspx?lan=1&art=9&fed=IRI&turdet=YES&flag=30&snr=131)

During the last three years, I was able to defeat a lot of strong titled players in Classical OTB games including IMs and GMs. You can see some of these games annotated in this study: lichess.org/study/EKTP3HnN

I have worked with a wide range of players since the start of 2016. I have the experience of teaching the absolute beginners in elementary school when I was much younger. I also had private sessions with a wide range of people with the FIDE rating of less than 2000 and the online rating of less than 2300.

I have also helped a couple of my very strong friends in their opening preparations for their tournaments.

Aside from teaching privately, I also have experience of creating instructive content online in my twitch and youtube channels.

I have been streaming on twitch for more than two years at http://twitch.tv/mrkooshachess and I have more than 3000 followers. I also have a youtube channel where I upload the most interesting moments of my streams alongside some instructive content: www.youtube.com/channel/UCQWaLaaYOd_srYt7swOhEkg

I also have the experience in teaching in other domains. For instance, I have been the Teaching Assistant in more than 10 courses in college, and I also helped out many people for their success in the Iranian University Entrance Exam and TOEFL test.

I love to play solid and positional chess. My main skill as a chess player, is to use the small strategical mistakes of my opponents and gradually turn them into a winning advantage. About the openings, I am an expert in the Caro-Kann and Nimzo/Queen's Indian with Black and I have solid repertoires with white with 1.e4, 1.d4 and 1. Nf3

I also have access to a lot of new chess books, databases, and video courses which I will use to help out my students.

I strongly believe that the student should first understand what is their main area of improvement in chess. As a result, I will first look at my student's games and will try to find out the main recurring patterns in their mistake. After finding their main areas of improvement, I will create a plan including the practice on all areas of chess (Openings, Tactics, Positonal Understanding, Endgames, etc) but with more focus on the areas of improvement. (A sample of through game analysis from my last tournament: lichess.org/study/2wqepeEL)

I use zoom or discord for the communication with the students and I will use the studies on lichess to analyze the lines during the sessions and provide them with a homework after each session.

I am usually available to answer my student's questions between the sessions or even support them when they participate in a tournament.