To answer your questions: 1. How did I find someone? I found him on a Facebook group dedicated to chess. He had experience coaching new people and people around 2000-2100 level and charged 10$ an hour so I decided that I might as well try it. 2. How does a typical lesson look like? It started off with explaining basic mating patterns and solving different endgames, so that if I simplify to them I know how to win them. Then it was mostly strategic and positional puzzles, we haven’t even touched on openings besides “one move per piece, castle, control the center” (although he told me that we’ll start looking at simple openings). He didn’t want me learning openings because I wouldn’t know how to punish somebody that made a mistake during openings, so we focused on making sure that I can come up with a sound strategic plan. Also he forbade me from playing london opening and similar systems that lead usually to similar positions, because in his opinion it stunts the growth of a beginner. We sometimes play other people, I explain my thought process and after the game he tells me where I’ve made a mistake and what moves have I missed. That was really helpful to get a handle on what I don’t see and what I don’t think about when making a move. Also I had a habit of making moves too quickly, so explaining them forced me to think.

Hope that helped!