Loek van Wely

Professional coach

“I must say, Max Warmerdam works a lot on his chess, but one of the problems is that he and I see chess completely differently. That’s good because it creates different angles on how to approach chess.

But if I tell him what he should do, and he still continues to go his own way, then I ask myself: Why am I even there? What’s my contribution to his development then? I would like him to adopt a bit more from me.

Sometimes I also conduct training sessions with Eline Roebers. But it’s a bit different. Firstly, she is a woman, so the dynamic is different. And I have been working with her for maybe a year or something, so we don’t have such a long history as with Max.

But the situation with her is roughly the same — perhaps it is my fault. For example, she won a gold medal at the European Blitz Championship and took bronze at the World Championship. But I cannot see the coach’s hand in her game.

I would like to see something of my approach to chess in her game. As could be seen, she struggled a lot at the Tata Challengers, and I think to succeed there, she needed a bit more of my playing style. But, again, sometimes players need to figure this out themselves, the hard way.

Maybe after this interview, both of them will fire me…”