Here’s a nice interview with Bosnian-Dutch GM Ivan Sokolov, once a member of the 2700 club and now a successful chess trainer, most recently of the Olympic gold medal-winning team from Uzbekistan.
Perhaps it was because Bobby Fischer was such a lone wolf that chess coaches were rarely talked about in the years of my youth, at least in the United States, but ever since Mark Dvoretsky attained fame in the West trainers have become chess celebrities in their own right. Alexander Nikitin and Yuri Dokhoian’s work with Garry Kasparov and Seymon Furman and Igor Zaitsev’s work with Anatoly Karpov deserve tremendous credit for making and keeping them the plaeyrs they were at their best, and more recently Peter Heine Nielsen has been an important part of Viswanathan Anand’s and Magnus Carlsen’s successes.
Returning to the topic of the post, Sokolov deserves his plaudits, as does R. B. Ramesh for his stellar work with the Indian team. About Ramesh, have a look at Chess24’s interview with him and Pragg at the end of the Crypto Cup, and if you’re feeling ambitious, take a look at his new book.
HT: Marginal Revolution (and if you’re so inclined, have a look at his fourth link as well - it’s very interesting).