Vtom, coached by NM Robert Ramirez, won the u2000 round-robin in CoachChamps 2025 with a round to spare and a final score of 6/7. He went on a perfect run of 6/6, only losing his last game after already clinching the tournament and victory for his coach in the coach standings. Ramirez takes home the $7,500 first prize.
Tournament Standings
Going into the final day, there were three coaches tied in first place: WGM Dina Belenkaya, IM Levy Rozman, and Ramirez. Thanks to his student’s impressive run, Ramirez won by three points.
Coach Standings
The prize fund of $25,000 is divided as follows.
You can see the participants in the u2000 tournament and their respective coaches listed below.
Vtom won all six of his games to clinch the tournament. He exuded the same confidence in the interview as he did on video during all of the games; even when things didn’t go his way, he was always calm and collected. He said, “I thought I was either going to win the first place or the last place… after the first round, I was almost certain I was going to win.”
… after the first round, I was almost certain I was going to win.
—Vtom
That first victory came aainst JJ0268, who was coached by GM Ben Finegold. JJ0268 made a typical pawn break in the center, but it was premature. With the excellent 16…Bg4!, vtom showed how delicate the white center, and then the king, can be.
When things went awry, a key strategy by vtom was to play quickly. In a few cases, he bamboozled his opponents, and he said, “I like to complicate… at this level it’s good enough. If i want to go to the next level, it’s not good enough.”
He pointed to his wins against Gothenburgess, coached by IM David Pruess, and asmoada, coached by IM Andras Toth, as two of his favorite wins. The one against Gothenburgess came in round two, and his crushing attack culminated with a piece sacrifice.
Asmoada, who came into the tournament as a rating favorite, just had an absolute nightmare. Nothing worked as she lost her first five games, but she did win her last two. Vtom beat her in round four after she hung a piece, a mistake that can only be attributed to the nerves of playing in front of thousands of viewers and her coach.
Although he didn’t mention it, vtom’s victory in round five against Olzhek, coached by GM Arturs Neiksans, was a turning point in the tournament. Going in, vtom led with four points, and a win for Olzhek (on three points) would have seen him catch the leader. The game featured a nervy time scramble where vtom hung his knight for one move, but then went on to outplay his opponent.
But the truly decisive result came in round six, which vtom won to clinch it. Truth be told, he allowed a typical opening trap on move three, lost a full pawn, but then went on to win. Had he lost this game, his tournament victory would have been in question in the final round.
The champion said the following about the process of studying for a month: “Thanks a lot to Robert. He’s a great coach, he’s very supporting, he didn’t put any pressure on me, we had a good communication, I think he really improved my game.” A specific improvement he pointed to was that when vtom tried to solve puzzles intuitively, “[Robert] would insist that I calculate all of the possible lines,” rather than just picking the move that looked most natural.
Thanks a lot to Robert… I think he really improved my game.
—Vtom
Early in the event, vtom’s biggest competitor looked to be Logando2805, coached by CM Can Kabadayi. After round three, Neiksans remarked, “Logando looks the most convincing from all of the games,” as he started with 3/3. His win in round two against Olzhek featured a brilliant (temporary) queen sacrifice that was (understandably) missed by both players, and he went on to win an otherwise convincing game.
In contrast to the breakneck start, however, Logando would go on to score just 0.5 of a point in the rest of the tournament, losing three and drawing one to finish with 3.5 points. The start of his troubles began with the game against Masky_Chess, coached by Rozman, who would be one of the three players to finish in a tie for second place.
It was unpredictable. At first, Masky_Chess had a crushing attack, but blundered a piece. It looked like Logando, up a bishop, was going to win a fourth game in a row.
Later, however, Logando would walk into a skewer to lose an exchange. And then, many moves later, would walk into another skewer to lose a piece. The latter was a great example of LPDO: Loose Pieces Drop Off!
Considering vtom ran away with the tournament, the fight for second place was heated, and it was ultimately shared by three players on four points: JJ0268, Olzhek, and Masky_Chess.
Olzhek’s most crushing win came against JJ0268 in round four. The second player played a Pirc, but perhaps caught off-guard in the opening, didn’t know how to deal with the white attack. Olzhek knew exactly how to conduct it:
Another fascinating clash between two of the second-place finishers was Masky_Chess vs. JJ0268 in round six. Nobody could predict the result of this game, but it was JJ0268 who crawled out of an awful position and won a piece from the complications.
In terms of beautiful checkmates, JJ0268 gets the prize for this one. When was the last time you saw an en passant checkmate? This was it in round five, against Logando2805. 37.gxf6# ended the game, also eliciting smiles from the commentators.
By the way, you would expect the highest section to have the most draws. The opposite was the case: there was just one draw, and it occurred in the last round between phoebewitte, coached by Belenkaya, and Logando, in a truly equal bishop endgame. Phoebewitte finished with 2.5/7, in sixth.
That’s it for CoachChamps this year, and congratulations to all of the players for participating and putting themselves out there in our very first one. We hope this experience will be a stepping stone on your longer journey to chess improvement.
CoachChamps 2025 is Chess.com’s tournament to find out who’s the best chess coach in the world. Any community member can participate in CoachChamps, but eight star coaches draft students on September 10. They then have until October 6 to help their student improve. Round-robins for each rating band go from October 7-10. The time control is 10+2 and the prize fund is $25,000; coaches earn prizes, while students win exclusive online coaching sessions, one year of free Diamond membership, and a $100 Chessable voucher. The winner of each round-robin will also win an exclusive piece of signed merch.
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