10/25/2025 – Michael Kotyk is a young chess coach from Hamburg. Below, he reviews Robert Ris's video course on the Colle & Zukertort System, an often underestimated system, but one that Kotyk has very personal memories of from his early days as a tournament player... | Photos: ChessBase

9/6/2025 – Michael Kotyk is a young chess trainer from Hamburg. He still remembers clearly when he first took serious notice of the Trompowsky system: during the World Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Sergey Karjakin. That was reason enough for him to take a closer look at Robert Ris’s video course on this opening and to explain why he now finds the Trompowsky system interesting, despite having long considered it not particularly dangerous... | Photos: ChessBase

8/2/2025 – Michael Kotyk, a young chess trainer from Hamburg, has taken a close look at David Navara’s new course. The Czech grandmaster, who has been among the world’s elite for many years, offers deep insights into how chess players can make their thinking processes more effective. Players often misjudge what needs to be calculated and what does not. Kotyk explains how David Navara approaches this subject.

6/1/2025 – When it comes to endgames, there's nobody better than Karsten Müller. Michael Kotyk, the young Hamburg chess trainer, knows this well. He's taken out his magnifying glass and dedicated himself to Müller's latest work: His endgame courses are ChessBase classics. The most recent edition also employs the interactive options that have become indispensable in video courses. The new edition of the Endgame Academy kicks off with Checkmate & Pawn Endgames.

5/2/2025 – The Classical Sicilian is one of the most flexible and dynamic variations of the Sicilian Defence. The Indian Grandmaster SP Sethuraman provides a comprehensive guide to mastering this opening in his new video course. In a series of detailed videos, Sethuraman introduces chess players to the intricacies of this combative opening. The course is aimed at ambitious chess players who want to play combative games with Black. It offers a common thread for an exciting opening for players from club level (1400) to title holders.

4/17/2025 – You want to understand chess? Who doesn't? – To make the path to that goal a little easier, GM Robert Ris explains in two more episodes of his strategy series what he believes is important. Understand his ideas, and it will be easier for you to develop good plans of your own.