"After he'd gained his law degree, John-Stuart was out teaching chess at a number of secondary schools on a semi-regular basis. Primarily, it began as a stop gap measure while he was trying to secure full time legal work. Although not entirely unexpected, John-Stuart happened to uncover his true calling and decided to abandon the idea of a law career."
Quote from Shakespeare with a right cross ... the John Bruce Plant Story by Michael Macdonald
"After he'd gained his law degree, John-Stuart was out teaching chess at a number of secondary schools on a semi-regular basis. Primarily, it began as a stop gap measure while he was trying to secure full time legal work. Although not entirely unexpected, John-Stuart happened to uncover his true calling and decided to abandon the idea of a law career."
Quote from Shakespeare with a right cross ... the John Bruce Plant Story by Michael Macdonald
"After he'd gained his law degree, John-Stuart was out teaching chess at a number of secondary schools on a semi-regular basis. Primarily, it began as a stop gap measure while he was trying to secure full time legal work. Although not entirely unexpected, John-Stuart happened to uncover his true calling and decided to abandon the idea of a law career."
Quote from Shakespeare with a right cross ... the John Bruce Plant Story by Michael Macdonald
"After he'd gained his law degree, John-Stuart was out teaching chess at a number of secondary schools on a semi-regular basis. Primarily, it began as a stop gap measure while he was trying to secure full time legal work. Although not entirely unexpected, John-Stuart happened to uncover his true calling and decided to abandon the idea of a law career."
Quote from Shakespeare with a right cross ... the John Bruce Plant Story by Michael Macdonald
My Achievements - So Far
As a chess player since I was 8 years old (way back when I was in Year 3 in 1996), I had it drummed in to me by my Dad, that win, lose or draw, the most important thing is to have fun and try and learn something from each game. I remember playing my first ever chess game at school in that year, and being pretty upset- having lost in 4 moves to the infamous "Scholar's Mate". My Dad- (who I didn't realise was a competition A grade chess player himself back in his day in Queensland), quickly started showing me the ropes of chess, through the book that he learned from "The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played" by Irving Chernev. Now, a systematic study of the games inside this book quickly laid a solid strong positional platform. One that saw me take out my primary schools chess competition, being the first 3rd grader to beat the reigning 6th grader champion in a best of 3 game playoff in that schools 80+ year history at that time!
FROM THAT POINT ON- JUST SOME OF MY MORE ILLUSTRIOUS CHESS ACHIEVEMENTS HAVE INCLUDED
- Holding a Peak ACF National Rating of: 2210 [slow] AND 2455!! quick, the latter put me 12th best in Aus before Covid
- Holding a Peak Fide (International Rating) of 2059 and obtaining an AGM Arena/(Basically Online) Grand Master Title
- Coming Equal 3rd Place in the Australian Reserves Champs 2026 (after having outright led it with a few rounds to go)
- Being the 2025 St. George Co Club Champion
- Placing in 2 NSW State weekender tournaments
- 2010-Present: Winner of countless St:George Club Lightning Tournaments, Club Allegro Tournaments, Placing (and Winning Summer Open Tournaments), Placing in the St.George Swiss Tournament, Multiple Time Club Rapid Winner, several times St:George Teams Competition Winner etc. Basically winning every single St.George Club tournament at least once- but more like multiple times! (except the Club Champs- I finally broke through in 2025 with this- see above)-
- 2015 Sydney Uni Club Champion Winner [one of the strongest ever University tournaments at that time, with multiple 2000+ rated players, I ended up undefeated on 8.5/9]
- Beat a couple of GMs online (including GMs Frank Holzke 2410 Fide, GM Richard Bitoon 2412 Fide, ) and lots of IMs and other masters as well
- Inventor of over 300+ Chess jokes to make chess fun - remember if ever you forget the rules of chess, don't worry you're allowed to check (and so on) XD
- Chess teaching experience of over a decade.
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Plant Chess Coaching Teaching Style
My chess teaching style always incorporates the following
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Encouraging every single student above all else to have fun when playing and learning chess
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Encouraging students to ask as many questions as possible, and I'll always do my best to break things down step by step
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Not sticking to any one constraining style, me having more or less become an ad hoc expert in chess unorthodox openings
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Telling as many corny 'Dad Chess Jokes' as possible XD