FM Raheem Glaves

I am trainer from Jamaica who started playing chess at age 14 and was at a point in life of just giving up because I found it difficult to improve as I could not avoid losing games when it mattered the most in tournaments. With the help of friends and my passion to get stronger, I started using simple steps which helped me to overcome this and began to fix major holes in my game play; and as a result I started to play accurately in positions that I was not normally comfortable with and in a matter of months became a National Master at 17, and went on to get my FIDE Master title at the age of 18. Now I'm one of the top 3 players in the entire country and I'm showing people all over the world exactly how I did it.
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- Best High School Player (2017-2019)
- Tied 3rd CARIFTA Games (2017)
- National Junior Champion (2019)
- RJR National Sports Award- Chess Athlete of the year (2019)
- Local Rapid Champion (2020)
- Record for winning the greatest number of local tournaments under a year
- National Master at the age of 17
- Record for the second youngest FIDE Master from Jamaica
- National representative including the Olympic level

My current coaching experience counts for 4 years now. I started off helping people from my region to get stronger by coaching schools and attending special events to give my insights about the sport and doing mini simuls. I have had a wonderful experience playing chess throughout my career and now this is my way of giving back and allow as many persons I can as possible to share a similar experience.
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I am known for my great positional understanding and I am very good at spotting major weaknesses in my opponents' and students' play.
With my sessions, methods are here to cover areas such as:

⏺️ Opening repertoires which allow you to get good middle game positions and what you believe best suits your style of play

⏺️ How to think like a master ( Playing as actively as possible, getting pieces to good squares, maximizing on development and concrete middle game plans, etc

⏺️ Middle game strategies
- Finding good candidate moves and plans to increase your advantage in games
- How to minimize on risks and having as much control over the game as possible
-Capitalizing on weak squares and areas that your opponents have when playing
- Always playing with a plan in mind and knowing the importance of each move you play

⏺️ Limiting the blunders you make and giving you a sharper mind for tactics (Puzzle solving, how to keep pieces coordinated, not overextending your position too much, king safety, etc

⏺️ Art of attacking chess ( Playing aggressively, pattern recognition, calculating forced lines and combinations, getting all your pieces involved with the play)

⏺️ Being a complete positional player ( Holding on to initiative, weakening your opponents' position, making your pieces better while taking control of key areas on the board. eg: open files and outposts, while slowly outplaying them)

⏺️ Art of defense ( Positional sacrifices to get good positions, counterattacking and playing offensive chess, trading off your bad pieces, central play)

⏺️Transitioning to a better or winning endgame (Getting connected passed pawns, good versus bad pieces, beating players when there position becomes too passive

⏺️ End game techniques and plans
- King activity
- Studying positions that are forced draw or won and how to play for them
- Checkmating patterns
- Pawn structure
- Not misplacing pieces
- Key breaks and plans to play as accurately as possible

⏺️ Time management and preparation for upcoming tournaments
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I offer personalized chess lessons and in-depth game analysis for my students. With this, methods will be placed to train them to eliminate as many weaknesses in their play as possible. It is crucial to know what are the major reasons why you are losing games constantly and what you need to do to improve which may be breaking one or two bad habits you might have. I will take a series of games you have played recently and find repeated patterns that made you lose or give up advantages and work together to fix them so that you can avoid doing it again in the future. We will first check your opening repertoire to see if the one you currently have can be played at a high level and make some improvements on some variations if there is a need to, or use one of my recommendations if you are willing to do so.
Secondly, we will look at how to keep advantages and play for the most concrete middle game plans that best suit your style and keeping an aggressive and focused thought process then checking how to convert your advantages into wins. We will go over top games played by GMs and also look at key plans and ideas to play for after an opening of your choice and the mindset you must have to play accurately in endgames with a lot of studies. With this also comes key methods and techniques to avoid blundering as much as possible within the process.
With the right practice and guidance you will always see results and I can help to put you on this path. It is never too late to start!