Whether you're looking to improve your rating, compete in tournaments, or simply enjoy the game of chess at a higher level, the Unstoppable Chess Academy can help you achieve your goals. With its knowledgeable instructors, cutting edge training tools and supportive community of fellow chess enthusiasts, the Academy offers everything you need to master the art of chess and become an unstoppable player. We have asked our fellow student from Ireland, Mary Lea, about her recent experience with UCA and the head coach Abi. This is Rosie from Unstoppable Chess Academy, powered by Opening Master, the biggest chess database. I welcome you to our regular interview sessions with Greatest Minds in Chess. Hi, Mary. It's pleasure talking with you. I have few questions for you, and I'm pretty sure our chess community would love to hear about you more. Let's start with easy one, how it is working with Unstoppable Chess Academy. What can you say about Coach Abi? Well, at the moment I'm studying with, uh, Unstoppable, uh, chess academy. And, um, my coach is Abi, who's been helping me, um, with board visualization and improving my tactics. I've played terrible chess for many, many decades, and he is helping me undo bad habits and understand the game, um, better, which has really helped me, um, play, um, Better chess, um, you know, chess, that I'm actually pleased whenever I, I don't, I don't make as many blunders, at least not in every game. And it's also helping me enjoy watching the game more. Enjoy, you know, um, the patterns and sophistication of the game. The other thing that he's helped me with a lot is I'm finding it easier to sort of, uh, keep the moves in my head. And because, um, I'm partially cited and I'll probably, you know, not be able to see the board at all at some point, um, I can actually, I can actually imagine that there will come a point when I'll be able to play comfortably, uh, just using the braille board. I'd always been worried that when I went completely blind, I'd not be able to play chess anymore. I know, know that I will be able to play chess, and that's entirely because of the, the help I've been getting, um, from the, from the academy. It's never too early or too late to study, even if it means decades. Congratulations. My next question is related to your achievements in chess. Can you tell us more how you started or what patterns do you use? How is your middle game? My greatest achievement in chess, I think, is the fact that I'm actually, uh, finally beginning to get better. After about 40 years odd of playing badly, um, it's quite hard to root out bad patterns and learn new patterns, and I'm very pleased with myself, but I'm beginning to understand, um, some kind of positional. Um, ideas, you know, to do with, uh, the middle game that had been completely beyond me that I just couldn't understand at all until fairly recently. So I'm happy about that. I'm also happy that, um, I can, I can sort of move the pieces around in my head that I can, um, You know, I, I can see the board, you know, more clearly and, um, think more moves ahead. Um, the other thing I'm enjoying is that, uh, there's a lot of children locally, um, learning chess, um, that I'm able to help with. I'd say just the fact that I enjoy chess and I'm able to share it with other people, um, is my greatest thing so far. Um, you know, that and the fact that, uh, Even though I'm, uh, not, never going to be a grandmaster, I'm definitely, um, going to keep enjoying the game and learning a little bit more about it. Um, so yes, uh, I'd say just the fact that I'm enjoying the game and still learning is, is my biggest, um, success in chess. 40 years of playing chess, that is already an achievement. Wow. I would like to ask you, how is it working with Coach Abi? He is right now in India, establishing UCA India, I guess you work only online? Follow more @OpeninMaster
