About Me
Hi! I’m Fide Master (FM) Jack Puccini from Melbourne, Australia, and I’m a chess coach and player. I bring more than a decade of coaching experience, having taught players ranging from complete beginners to advanced experts.
I believe that chess is fundamentally a game of skill, rather than knowledge. Accordingly, my coaching method starts with a detailed analysis of a student’s games and includes specific tasks and puzzles to identify any skills gaps. Based on these assessments, we then focus our lessons on targeted skill development, supplemented by personalized homework assignments to strengthen these areas.
Some of my chess playing and coaching achievements include:
- Fide Rating: 2342
- Top 15 Rated Players in Australia (Both FIDE and ACF Ratings)
- Former Australian Blitz Champion
- Coached junior players to both State and National Championship level
You can learn more about my coaching below.
My Chess Articles
Here you can find my writings on all things chess! I’m specifically interested in what might be called more meta-chess topics, such as how we make decisions as we play, the utility of different principles and training modalities, how we can best improve etc… Occasionally, you may also find articles on ‘actual chess’, such trending opening ideas and more.
The Axiom System – Part 4: Justification in Chess
Principles, Justification and Evaluation — perhaps the most mistreated trio in all of chess. In the previous article, I suggested that in unknown positions, the
The Axiom System – Part 3: How Do We Make Decisions
In the previous article, I explored the idea of starting from scratch to develop a framework for understanding practical chess, anchoring our approach in the
Cheating: Trust and Traitors in Chess
How can we simultaneously tackle the two heads of the cheating beast — detection and trust? Seemingly every chess player nowadays is familiar with the
The Axiom System – Part 2: Typical Arguments in Chess
In my previous article in this series, I highlighted that many of the answers provided by modern chess culture, while appearing sage and wise, are
The Axiom System – Part 1 – Introduction
An adult newcomer to chess might find themselves simultaneously impressed yet overwhelmed by the game’s extensive literature, rich knowledge base, and specialized terminology. A game
