NM Dmitry Kishinevsky

Hi. My name is Dmitry Kishinevsky and I am a National Master, which I became in San Diego, CA about 15 years ago. I currently live near Fort Collins, CO.
I have now been coaching chess for about 3 decades and enjoy it immensely. I have so many different students of all ages and occupations; they generally tend to stay with me for the long haul and I am very grateful for that.
After taking quite a long break in the last few years, I am back to playing tournaments. I am very excited these days about chess because I have recently set a new big goal for myself of becoming IM. Naturally I am working very hard on my own game as well, just like all my students :)
My time for coaching is somewhat limited these days, as I spend so much of it working on improving my own game. But I still absolutely love meeting new chess students, who really love the game and want to improve.

My chess tournament career began in San Diego around 2000 and aside from a few-year break (mostly during Covid) has continued ever since. I am playing a lot these days, working on building my rating back up with a goal of at least 2500 USCF in mind. It is so much fun participating in the some of the same tournaments that my students play in. There is nothing like playing chess competitively, as difficult and frustrating as it can be at times. It builds character, right? ;)

I started out teaching chess back in San Diego where I worked for a few different chess-in-schools programs, coaching mostly elementary kids but also older kids. I absolutely loved it. Now, I enjoy helping my high school students improve and perhaps have a chance to qualify for various chess scholarships, should they decide to do so.
Over time, I started coaching and tutoring chess more and more to people of all ages. My youngest personal student, over the last decade, was 5 and my oldest 85! And they both did fantastic in terms of improving.
Staring my own practice of mostly online chess instruction has been extremely rewarding to me. I love seeing my students improve, play better, enjoy the game more, and participate in tournaments.
I estimate that in the last 5 years, or so, I have tutored/coached about 200 to 250 students of various levels of proficiency. That type of broad experience has really helped me improve even more as a qualified chess trainer.
I now also teach at a new local Chess, Music and Art business in Colorado and greatly enjoy it.

Because I come from a family of teachers, I just LOVE teaching. I enjoy it with music, specifically composition and many other domains. There is something so special about helping someone see and know something better, perhaps in a different light; and get tangibly better at it.

I really believe in patience, work, and persistence. With all my students, I take the approach of understanding exactly where they are (their strengths and weaknesses) and the best path forward in terms of gaining new knowledge and enhancing their skillsets, while working on their weakest links.
My best chess skills have to do with training myself and others to really understand the chess position in front of us, and play correctly, powerfully, and thematically from that understanding. To me, this is the ONLY way to get truly good at it and master the game.

Learning and improving at chess should NEVER be just boring, frustrating or overwhelming. Chess is a game! A beautiful, incredible game that is best learned and mastered thru incremental progress, on-going accumulation of experience, knowledge, and understanding; and dedicated study. Please, have fun with it!! Always! And, of course, put in the work if you really want to improve and become a stronger player :)
Remember, with the right approach, commitment, and hard work, anything is possible. And you absolutely can learn, improve, and master chess at a higher level!