> Told that Tani needed a top chess coach to develop, the family scrimped and hired a grandmaster, Giorgi Kacheishvili, to coach Tani three times a week.
Honest question, could you be an effective chess coach if you're not a better chess player than the student?
[Edit] Tani has a rating of 2223 and Giorgi's rating is 2582, so it appears Giorgi is better
1. Tani is rapidly moving up the ranks. He's only 10. Presumably the rating difference was much larger just a few months ago.
2. 300 points is still quite a large rating difference.
3. In many disciplines the best practitioners are often not the best coaches. You might speculate that being the very best and most talented would make a worse coach since the struggle to increasing levels was easier.
Not a very good chess player but I'd imagine it's a similar phenomenon to any sports coach. Tani clearly has an incredible ability that his coach can help unlock. EDIT: This is a really good question and I like these answers - unsure why OP is being downvoted!
At a low level, obviously no, you can't. At a professional level, you are more of a sparring partner than a teacher. Maybe you're an expert of a certain opening or endgame, or you're trying to identify specific weaknesses in someone else's game.
Also when chess players reach those much higher levels, they usually have a team helping them out. A combination of even 2 lower ranked players can very easily be better than a single higher rated chess player.
Being a good coach isn't really about "uploading" existing knowledge, but a lot more like being a good manager. The role has more to do with things like maintaining good discipline and habits, keeping you motivated and focused on your objective, organizing your schedule, identifying key areas for improvement, being on the lookout for opportunities, so on so forth...
It might be different for chess, simply because chess is theoretically completely solvable, but there isn’t a single endeavor in which a coach is better than the player they are coaching (or else they would still be playing!).
Honest question, could you be an effective chess coach if you're not a better chess player than the student?
[Edit] Tani has a rating of 2223 and Giorgi's rating is 2582, so it appears Giorgi is better
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgi_Kacheishvili