This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with American International Master Kostya Kavutskiy.

Kostya is one of the three "senseis" (teachers) at the ChessDojo, an international chess training program that Kostya runs together with fellow Americans GM Jesse Kraai and IM David Pruess. As a player, he is currently embarking on a "European tour", which has included the recent Reykjavik and Grenke tournaments. His next destination is Spain, where he will be attending the Killer Chess training camp organised by Jacob Aagaard.

Joining us from Hamurg, Germany, Kostya talks to Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam about the origins of the ChessDojo program, his GM ambitions, meeting Vasyl Ivanchuk and much more. Enjoy this week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast!

Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro

2:08 – Why Kostya prefers playing in Europe

4:00 – The philosophy behind the Chess Dojo

9:58 – How did Kostya transition from playing to teaching?

11:25 – Drawing inspiration from Mark Dvorestky

12:55 – The Dojo’s online training plan

16:20 – If a player outgrows his teacher, can the teacher still be of use?

18:00 – Running into Dojo fans around the world

21:35 – How Kostya finds his training material

23:00 – Why Kostya does not necessarily think new books are better than the older ones

28:10 – Meeting Vasil Ivanchuk in Reykjavik

37:08 – AD BREAK

38:05 – The value of post-mortem analysis

41:00 – What eleven hours of analysis with Vasil Ivanchuk feels like

49:00 – Grenke

50:50 – The future of freestyle chess

54:40 – Did Kostya analyse the freestyle games from Grenke?

57:00 – Kostya’s trip to Spain to train with Jacob Aagaard

58:20 – AD BREAK

59:00 – Kostya’s quest to become a grandmaster

1:01:50 – Has teaching made Kostya a better player?

1:05:10 – Kostya’s bet with Dirk Jan