Year in Review 2025

I have seen many personal “year in review” blog posts recently, and I felt inspired to write one myself. I am very excited about it, and I hope you will enjoy reading it as well.

We will divide this blog into multiple sections: Personal Highlights, Career & Income Highlights, Coaching Highlights, Learnings, My Favorites of 2025, and Goals for 2026.

Personal Highlights

My personal highlights are mostly chess-related, as chess has been a major part of my life until now.

This year went better than all my previous years. For most chess players, success in chess equals success in life, and I was no exception. My long-term goal was to become an International Chess Master, and I achieved this milestone in May 2025.

Another major highlight was winning two rapid tournaments and earning my highest-ever prize money from a single tournament (₹51,000). Winning tournaments has always been a struggle for me, and sometimes luck plays an important role in chess.

One of the biggest benefits of being a chess player is the opportunity to travel to different countries. This year, I played tournaments in India, UAE, Austria, France, Sweden, and Hungary. Hungary stands out as my favorite due to its affordability, safety, and the fact that I always play very well in Budapest.

I also bought a Nespresso machine in early 2025. It was a dream purchase, and I don’t regret it at all—probably one of the best investments I have made so far.

Career and Income Highlights

Since 2023, I decided to focus more on income and aimed to increase it by at least 15–20% every year. I constantly experiment with new ideas and try to add more income streams.

In 2023 and 2024, affiliate income was one of my major revenue sources. In 2025, after completing my IM title, I started accepting more students, as I had fewer personal chess goals (such as pushing hard for the GM title). This year, I taught around 20 one-on-one students.

Most of them have been with me for the last 1–2 years, while some are new. Focusing on coaching paid off well, especially in terms of results, which I will cover in the coaching highlights section.

I earned my highest revenue ever in 2025, mainly through coaching and affiliate income. Tournament winnings are always a smaller part of total income, but they feel special—especially when you finish on the podium.

From February 2025 to June 2025, I got an opportunity to work with a multinational American-based company in the field of AI. A friend called me and asked if I was free to take it up, and I said yes. It was a 10-hours-per-week role involving a lot of creative work. I am very grateful to him for this opportunity.

Interestingly, this happened around the same time I completed my IM title, so that memory will stay with me forever.

I also launched a digital product and made some sales, although I didn’t focus much on it. My plan is to launch more products in 2026 and generate a decent income from them.

In 2025, I received the highest number of coaching enquiries ever. The enquiries exploded when my students started winning state, national, and Asian championships. In total, I received over 150 enquiries for individual coaching.

Content creation is something I took bit seriously in late 2025. I started posting regularly on twitter and gained a decent number of followers.

One of the major goals in 2026 is to be more consistant with content creation and share lot of chess and life content out. This can change someone’s life for sure.

Coaching Highlights

Coaching went extremely well this year—both in terms of results and income. I always focus on providing value and thinking deeply about how my students can improve. This is one reason why I generally charge more than coaches in the same rating range.

I had the opportunity to work with students from India, USA, UK, Zambia, and Qatar.

A new addition this year was offline coaching, which I tried for the first time. I enjoyed the experience, although there are clear pros and cons. Personally, I find online coaching more convenient and more exciting to teach. Offline coaching feels more time-consuming for both students and coaches.

Thankfully, around 90% of my students are serious chess players who are willing to learn and adapt to new ideas.

Another major experience was conducting an offline coaching camp for 1900-rated players, which came through a friend who invited me for the program.

Major Highlights as a Chess Coach

Siddhant Salunke

Won National Schools U15 Championship – December 2025
Won U13 State Championship – 2025
3rd place in U15 State Championship – 2025
Won CISCE National Championship (U14 Boys) – 2025

Advik Agrawal

Earned the Candidate Master title by crossing 2200
Silver Medal at Asian Youth U12 Chess Championship – 2025

Nitya Wankhedkar

Silver Medal at African Youth Chess Championship 2025 (U10 Girls)
Champion at Zambia Youth and Schools Closed Chess Championships

Jackson

Gained 197 rating points in a single year

Learnings

Chess is not life. Many players associate their entire identity with chess and struggle to think beyond it. I was one of them, but this mindset needs to change.
If you are very close to achieving a goal, stick to it. Achieving it gives a massive dopamine boost and a true sense of accomplishment.
Making money has many benefits, and focusing on it is absolutely worth it.
A friend once gave me legendary advice: you don’t need to give a reason to cancel a class—just say no.
As a chess coach, always think about your students. Give them proper homework and teach them how to study on their own. This helped me a lot.
Chess coaching can make you lazy. It’s a desk job, and people generally respect you—it feels like a one-way win. But you may miss out on life’s real adventures, ups, and downs.

Best Purchases of 2025

Nespresso Coffee Machine
I am a big coffee fan and I always like trying new coffee varieties. Nespresso has made my life much easier and saves a lot of time. Whenever I travel to Europe or the Middle East, I try to buy newer versions of coffee pods, and they are not very expensive either. Overall, it has been a great purchase.

OnePlus 13
I wanted to buy a flagship phone, and I decided to go with OnePlus. It has been one of my best phone purchases so far. Everything is working very smoothly, and I am completely satisfied with it.

Gallon Water Bottle
This is a 2.5-litre water bottle that I bought for just ₹350. I highly recommend it for people who get bored of refilling their bottle frequently or often forget to drink enough water. You fill it once, and if you finish it, you’ve already consumed at least 2.5 litres for the day.

2026 Goals

My major goal for 2026 is consistency in everything. I have divided my goals into four parts: Chess, Income, Health, and Content.

Chess

I plan to focus more on rapid and blitz chess. Classical chess is very time-consuming, and spending 10–12 days on a single tournament does not always feel worth it. With my current level, I have a much better chance of winning rapid and blitz tournaments regularly in India.

My goal is to finish in the top 3 at the National Rapid and Blitz Championships within the next 1–2 years.

I am not completely stopping classical chess. I will still play around 3–5 classical events. I agree with my mentor Vishnu, who said that anyone can reach 2600–2700 strength with just 2 hours of quality chess practice per day. I know exactly what I need to do, but I lack motivation and consistency in actually doing the practice. Improving this will be a key focus for me.

Income

As mentioned earlier, my goal is to increase my income by 15–20% compared to the previous year. This is achievable through more content creation, affiliate income, and launching my own chess courses.

Coaching can be stressful, but it is also very rewarding. I am planning to accept more students in the next quarter, depending on my time availability and overall situation.

Health

Treating health as an integrated part of my lifestyle is something I really want to work on. My main goal is to eat cleaner and healthier food, with a stronger focus on home-cooked meals.

Content

I have been quite successful with posting on X (Twitter) over the last few months. My goal is to:

Post once a day on X
Upload once a week on YouTube
Write one good blog post regularly on my personal website

Goals are dynamic in nature and can change depending on the situation. However, I will make a strong effort to stick to my health goals, regardless of other changes.