Alexandre Iwanesko, FIDE Master & chess coach in Geneva

Background and FIDE title

FIDE Master is an international title awarded for life by the International Chess Federation. My rating and the list of my tournaments are public: they live on my official FIDE profile, which stays current without my touching it. It is the only document that counts, and anyone can check it.

I stopped competing for six years and came back in August 2025. The first year is on the record: 188 FIDE-rated games and 139 rating points lost at classical — my 2289 described the player I was in 2018, not the one sitting back down. I wrote it all up, numbers and curve included, in my return-to-chess review. If you are looking for a coach who only talks about his wins, this is the wrong address.

Results and club

I play in the Swiss National League A, the top division of the Swiss team championship, with Nyon 1. The 2026 season came down to survival, secured in rounds 6 and 7 — the objective of the year, met in a single weekend.

On the open circuit, the 2026 season reads: Pontevedra Open (4.5/9), 50th Badalona Open (4.5/8), Monthey Grand Prix (5/7). Every tournament has its diary on the blog, annotated games and mistakes included; the competition calendar gathers them.

Teaching chess

I coach adults from 1200 to 2200 Elo and competitive teenagers, in person in Geneva and online across French-speaking Switzerland. These are improvement lessons: I do not take complete beginners, because it is neither my job nor what I do best.

The clearest result so far is Flavien’s: two months of work on positional understanding, and a rating that went from 2000 to 2100 FIDE. The other coached cases are described one by one on the results page — with no stars and no ratings, because nobody gave me any.

My method

No ready-made recipes. We start from your rated games, isolate the two or three mistakes that cost the most, and build a plan over eight to twelve weeks with checkable goals. You improve through understanding, not memorisation — and my own comeback reminded me of that the hard way: judgement returns quickly, calculation takes work.

In practice that means adult chess lessons in Geneva, online sessions, and, with an open coming up, tournament preparation.