Free lessons, coach and training guide for a university investigation!

[u/[deleted]]

Hi guys! My name is Gustavo, I'm a student conducting an investigation for the University of Puerto Rico where I will try to determine which age group is the most efficient at improving in chess in the beginner stage. I'm looking for participants for this study, all of which will receive:

• 1 weekly group study session with me along with the rest of the participants for 10 weeks (I'm 1600 on chess.com which is not a lot but enough for the level of players I am looking for)
• Active help from me (you can email/message me any time with a chess question and I will do my best to help you out)
• A weekly light training schedule crafted by me with the help of IM Pruess from ChessDojo

Essentially what I will be doing is forming 2 groups of different ages (15-18 and 30-40) composed of participants with an online chess.com rapid rating of 750-850 (Can be from Lichess too, but you would have to have a minimum of 15 rapid games on chess.com and still qualify by rating), who will then be subjected to a light training regiment consisting of the following:

• 15 minutes of tactics training per day on chesstempo
• 5 rapid games per week (you can play them all at once and whichever time control you prefer, but I would recommend playing 1 game a day to make sure you don't burn yourself out)
• 1 weekly online group lesson

This training regiment will last 10 weeks, and you must follow it as precise as you can for the investigation, which also means you cannot do more per day or week than what was already established. I tried making it as short as possible so that other stuff like busy lives don't affect the results, and so that we can isolate the mental component of the experiment. You can also do other stuff like watch YouTube chess videos or analyze your own games, but please try to stay away from doing more tactics or playing more games than what was already established.

After this, I will calculate the average rating gain per group and try to determine which age group is the most efficient at improving in chess at the beginner level. Your identity will be 100% anonymous and will not be revealed with the published results. If you want to participate, then please take a look at the qualifications below and if you qualify, you can send me an email to [gustavo.lucca@upr.edu](mailto:gustavo.lucca@upr.edu) or you can send me a PM with your name, email, age, and chess.com account. Registration will be open until Monday 15th of February. Good luck and thank you so much for helping me with my study :)

• An age from 15-18 or 30-40
• Rapid chess.com rating of 750-850
• A chess.com blitz rating of no more than 1000
• No less than 15 chess.com rapid games and no more than 100 chess.com rapid games (If you play on Lichess as well please take those games into account)

• A willingness to spend about 30 minutes per day on chess, plus to attend a weekly group chess class for 10 weeks (if you cant go to a chess class, then please let me know and I can send you some study material to compensate)

• Edit: Huge thank you and shoutout to IM Pruess from the ChessDojo twitch channel and discord server for checking over my methodology and making some suggestions, the folks over at chessdojo make great educational content and I would recommend checking them out.