Coach of 9-year-old Russian champion Liya Andreeva: “She is very disciplined and positive”

Nine-year-old Liya Andreeva, who began her sports career in Bashkiria, won the Russian championship in Russian checkers in Samara. A student of the USSR grandmaster, Anatoly Chulkova, scored the maximum number of points at the tournament among participants under 11 years old and was far ahead of Milana Dubovenko from Saratov, Sofia Dudnik from the Nizhny Novgorod region and Alesya Lisina from Udmurtia. More than 200 young athletes from all regions of the country took part in the tournament.

Leah took her first steps in this sport in Bashkiria, and now continues her sports career in Moscow. She already has experience of successful performance at the Russian championship. While in first grade, she took first place in the class of 2022.

The young checkers player’s current mentor, Anatoly Chulkov, has been training Leah for exactly one year.

“We met her in April,” recalls Anatoly Alekseevich. “I was inspired by the fact that absolutely everyone in her family was interested in Leah’s success: her mother and father, and her grandmother. They understand how difficult it is and how important discipline is in sports, without which high achievements are impossible.

And the young champion, according to him, is very disciplined. She understands perfectly well that the one who trains more than her opponents wins.

“Before the competition, we conducted two training sessions every day, analyzed the opponents’ games, looked for their weak points, and selected the “keys” for them,” says Anatoly Alekseevich. – Leah had the mindset to win. For her nine years, she is an amazingly disciplined girl and, importantly, absolutely positive. She never expressed dissatisfaction if I made comments to her. Leah takes it all as an adult and always takes mistakes into account.

At this championship, according to the coach, his pupil overcame herself in many ways.

– At the tournament, for example, there was a rival who had beaten her before, but this time Leah beat her twice. And immediately her self-esteem rose.

According to the coach, the evolution of checkers is now proceeding at a crazy speed. In addition to theory, young athletes these days can improve their skills with the help of computer programs.

“When training, we use both theory and special checkers programs,” comments Anatoly Chulkov. – Leah plays every day on the gaming platform with other players. Minimum three games. This is more than a thousand batches per year. I think this is a very good practice. Then she and I sort through all these games.

Despite the spring school holidays, now Liya Andreeva continues to train. She has 10 workouts a week. Sometimes there are two classes a day. Having won the Russian championship, the young athlete received the right to represent our country at the European and world championships.