Alicia Mason hadn’t played in a major Fide-rated tournament since she was traumatised by a bad loss 12 years ago. So how would a tough nine-rounder at the London Chess Classic go? Photographs by Lula Roberts

Prologue

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fide-rated classical chess tournament is not for the faint-hearted. The under-2000 section of the 2024 London Chess Classic proved to be no exception. Before we delve into the thrills and spills, let me set the scene a little and explain how I ended up there.

Brighton, 2012. I was a bright young thing, playing in the e2e4 Congress. I had had a good tournament, and going into the last round, I only needed a draw to win my section. Playing on the White side of a Closed Sicilian, I reached the following position after over four hours of battle.

It was here, short of time, panicked and exhausted, that I resigned, upon seeing that 39. Nh7 loses to Qxg6. I seemed to be all smiles and stoicism after the game, batting away my opponent’s sympathetic overtures, but inwardly I was devastated at the loss and saw it as a damning indictment of my skills and future in chess. This feeling was further compounded when, after checking the final position with an engine, I realised that 39. Qh7! would have led to an immediate draw after 39…Rxh7 40.Nxh7, when, with the f-pawn about to queen, Black has nothing better than perpetual check .

I had learned how the pieces moved at around the same time as my baby legs first held me upright, but now, as an ambitious and highly strung teenager, I was falling out of love with the game. For quite some time, the relief of a win had paled in comparison to the despair of defeat, and I was bitter at being beaten by the same old rivals who seemed to make quantum leaps in playing strength at every tournament. My heart strained in my chest every time I obtained a good position, struggling to bear the possibility that I might once again mess it up. But this loss was the last straw. “I can’t do this to myself any more,” I decided. “I’m done with chess.”

From that day on, I barely picked up a chess piece for the best part of 10 years, and was reduced to surreptitious glances at the chess column in the Times supplement. But it seems the chess bug never really leaves you, and as for so many people it was The Queen’s Gambit and the Covid chess boom that brought me back to the game. I found solace in GothamChess, GingerGM and the Botez sisters at a time when I was living alone in a New York City apartment, barred from human interaction for weeks at a time due to US quarantine laws.

When I came back to the UK in June this year, I resolved to return to the chess world with a bang and put the Brighton 2012 ghosts to rest. As well as becoming a paid-up member of Kingston Chess Club, I watched ChessMood courses and solved Puzzle Rush problems religiously. Still, I knew that the only way to banish my demons entirely would be to play in another Fide nine-rounder. Enter the London Chess Classic.

Pre-tournament

For about a month before the tournament, I had adopted a daily training plan involving half an hour’s work on chess exercises, a game (either online rapid or classical at the club), and analysis of that game. I knew that I needed to get into the habit of playing as much as possible to prepare myself for the rigours of the tournament and subject myself to exposure therapy to get over my fear of losing.

Perhaps it was my imagination, but I felt that with sustained effort I had begun to outplay people who had comparable ratings to mine. In general, though, I wanted to pay as little attention as possible to the numbers. Those who know me from playing for Kingston will remember that I prefer not to know my opponent’s rating before I sit down to play. I also wanted to pay as little attention as possible to my own rating fluctuations, trusting that with continued hard work, the elo would take care of itself. Where I had collapsed under the pressure of trying to clinch victory as a teenager, I hoped that I would now be able to ignore the glittering temptations of prizes and rating gain and remain unruffled by the tournament situation.

Day 1

Such feats remain easier said than done, of course, and I was immediately starstruck on arriving at the Emirates Stadium that first chilly afternoon. Kingston’s very own newly minted GM, Ameet Ghasi, was waiting behind me in the bag check queue, and as I made my way up the escalator and turned the corner, I saw Lawrence Trent holding court in front of a crowd of players, and Malcolm Pein and Peter Svidler in deep conversation by the bookstall. It was a very exciting place to be, but one thing my recent arguments with Stockfish hadn’t prepared me for was how lonely I would feel, sat in a booth on my own waiting for the round to start. I can’t imagine how professional chess players handle that feeling week in, week out on the tournament circuit.

Those thoughts evaporated as soon as my first game began, and I entered combat mode. I was paired against the sort of junior who moves instantly and with palpable disdain, and gets up from the board at every turn. Still, I think I gave him more of a game than he was anticipating – close to 2000 Fide, he outrated me by exactly 200 points. His overconfidence led him to go for a hasty combinatorial sequence where I was gifted two minor pieces for a rook and pawn, and his king was at the mercy of my two bishops. I sensed that I was doing well, but didn’t fully appreciate just how well I was doing.

Here, playing White, I have the rather nice threat of 28. Bxd5, followed by 29. Nb6+ and 30. Qa3+, which will lead to mate. My opponent played 27…b6 to deal with that threat, and had I simply thrown my a-pawn up the board with 28.a4!, heading for a5 and further exposing his king, I would have had a completely winning position. Instead, though, I thought that the best course of action would be to bring my knight on d2 to a better square, and so I played 28. Nf1?, aiming to shuffle the knight around to e3. Indeed, I proceeded to fritter away my advantage over the next few moves, even blundering back the two pieces for a rook. We exchanged further mistakes until the following position was reached.

While in the previous position, I’d underestimated the extent of my advantage, here I thought that I was winning when the position is in fact at best level. My plan is h7 and Rd6+, and if my opponent plays 49…Ke7, then I would play 50. h7, threatening 51. Re8+ and 52. h8=Q, and after 50…Rh2, 51. Ra8! will win because 51…Rxh7 loses the rook to 52. Rxa7+. An old trick.

Here is how the game continued: 49… Re2+! 50. Kd3?? Rh2 51. h7 Ke5! Had I played 50. Kf4!, continuing to cover the e5 square, the game would be drawn, because my opponent would have nothing better than to keep checking me on f2 and e2 with his rook. But after 50. Kd3??, the black king reaches e5, where it is shielded from checks by the white rook, and so I can never move my rook away from h8 because I lose the pawn on h7. Once he has consolidated his queenside pawns with a5, Black can play Kf6, when if Rf8+, Kg7 is in time to stop the white pawn.

Still, I managed to fight back to this position, when I thought I should be able to draw fairly easily.

Indeed, this position is an easy draw, if I find the move 61. Rf1! Black can make no progress: for instance, if 61…e5, then 62. Re1 Kf4 63. Rf1+ Ke4 64. Re1+, and the king has to stay defending the pawn. Black can try defending the pawn with the rook, but this would allow my king back into the defence, so White is holding this ending.

Unfortunately, though, I instead played 61. Re8??, adhering to the old adage that rooks belong behind passed pawns, and after 61…Kf5 62. Rf8+ Ke4, Black is making progress. I played on for a few more moves, but sadly for me, my talented young opponent was familiar with the Lucena position, and I had to resign on move 81.

I wasn’t too downcast after this loss, though – in fact, I was proud of myself for giving my opponent a thumping good game, and after all, I’d expected to face strong players. In a strange way, it was nice to see the Lucena position played out on the board, even if I was on the receiving end of it this time. I made my way home still in reasonably high spirits.

Day 2

I woke up considerably less cheerful at 6:15am the next morning. The very late dinner after the previous night’s game and the lack of sleep were taking their toll on my body. The sun slowly began to rise as I made my trek back across London for the second round, and I found myself thinking, “Do I really want to do this? Do I really want to devote the next week of my life to this?”

I knew I had to do something to address the loneliness I was feeling. Soon before the second round was due to start, I plucked up the courage to go and introduce myself to another young woman who was playing in my section. I recognised her as Lula Roberts (known to the Internet as lularobs), a chess streamer and YouTuber whose content I enjoyed watching.

Even though she only learned to play chess three or four years ago, she’s already a WCM who has played on top board for her native Jersey at the Chess Olympiad. She also has a good eye for a chess meme, and even managed to convince Malcolm Pein (and the Mirror) earlier this year that Taylor Swift was a chess aficionado who had recently dropped the London System in favour of the Queen’s Gambit (hence the song title ‘So Long, London’). Luckily for me, she proved to be very friendly, and invited me to go for lunch with her after the morning round, which significantly eased my tournament blues.

Both of us won our second games within an hour, Lula with a deadly kingside attack, and me by default when my opponent failed to materialise. It’s always a shame not to get a game, but still, I was glad of the extra point, and if I had to win by default, I was happy it happened on the day when I was supposed to be playing two games. In stark contrast to the previous afternoon’s nerves and solitude, I could conserve my energy chatting with Lula and her friend Caitlin Reid, a fellow U2000 entrant and member of the Scottish women’s team. It didn’t seem to do my chess much good, though, as calamity struck in Round 3.

This was not a game I’d found particularly enjoyable up to this point, on the Black side of a Maroczy Bind. Now, though, I sensed that there was a way out of my difficulties. The obvious move here is, of course, 21…Nc2, counter-attacking the pawn on a3, so that 22. Bxa7 Nxa3 preserves material parity. In the resulting position, though, I was worried about the move 23. Nd4, taking away the c2 and b5 squares from my knight, when after 23…Nb1 24. Rb2 Nc3 25. Rc2, my knight is pinned.

I therefore thought I was being clever when I spotted the move 21…Rc2, when there’s no danger of my knight getting trapped or pinned after the exchange of rooks, and I assumed that 22. axb4 wasn’t possible because I could take White’s rook. So I went for 21…Rc2?? pretty quickly, and promptly received a cold shower when my opponent did in fact play 22. axb4. Somehow, I’d missed that the White rook is defended by the bishop on e3, so I’d simply lost a piece for nothing. I played on for a few more moves, somewhere between disbelief and disgust, but it wasn’t long before I felt I’d seen enough.

In fact, after 21…Nc2 22.Bxa7 Nxa3 23.Nd4 Rc3!, threatening …Bxd4+ and …Rxb3, Black is at least equal and probably better. Sometimes it can be hard to explain howlers like this, but I suspect the earlier dissatisfaction with my position, coupled with excitement at the thought that I had found a way to equalise without endangering my knight, caused the internal blunder-checking system, which is imperfect at the best of times, to go haywire. This was not a fun game to lose, but I reminded myself that even the best sometimes blunder, and that there were still six more games to play.

Day 3

I was eager to turn the tide of two games played and two games lost, and received welcome support in the form of my husband, who gamely accompanied me to the Emirates to watch me play in the afternoon. Though not a chess player himself, he appreciates any game involving extensive strategising and opportunities to ruin your opponent’s day, and he listens patiently to my post-game “war stories”, as he calls them. When he tells friends and acquaintances that I play chess, he likes to recount one memorable day out in London earlier this year, where I spent an hour so absorbed in trying to solve a particularly fiendish blindfold chess puzzle that not even the delights of Hotel Chocolat could distract me.

This was his first real foray into the chess world, though, and I was curious to see what he would make of it, and at what moment his patience would run out if I ended up embroiled in yet another five-hour struggle. Perhaps he brought some good fortune with him, as I managed to win my game in around three hours. Playing Black against the English, I didn’t play perfectly, but was able to use a tactic to bag a pawn and reach a winning king-and-pawn ending, as shown below.

“So, what did you think?” I asked my husband after the game. “Did you enjoy watching everyone play?” “I knew you were going to win,” he said. “How so?” “I counted the pieces, and saw you had one more than he did.” It seems like, in that ending, he had more faith in me and a better grasp of the position than I did at times!

Day 4

After soaring to my first win of the tournament the previous day, round 5 saw me brought back down to earth with a bump. One lesson I was taking from this tournament was to ask myself, at every turn, how I can cause my opponent as much annoyance as possible? But this game provides an example of where I failed to do this.

I have White here, and chose the insipid 12. Qd2. While the position is still fine for White after this, 12. Nh4 would have been a much more irritating move for my opponent to face. The knight is angling to come into f5, hitting the undefended bishop on e7. If Black prevents this with 12…g6, then it might seem like White hasn’t achieved all that much, as the knight will eventually have to return to f3, but this weakening of the Black kingside means that, if White ever plays Ng5, it will be much harder to dislodge the knight with h6. A knight on g5 in combination with the bishop on a2 would be a real pain for Black, who would constantly have to keep an eye on his f7 pawn and watch out for any funny business on e6. Otherwise, if Black plays 12…Rfe8 to defend the bishop, then after 13. Nf5 Bf8 14. d5 c5 15. g4, White’s kingside initiative looks to be building quite nicely.

I seem to remember briefly considering 12. Nh4 during the game, but decided to prioritise simple development instead, and perhaps this illustrates a tendency of mine to eschew concrete calculation in favour of easy moves and general principles. This is a tendency I will have to overcome if I want to take my play to the next level. In this game, after a couple more questionable decisions, like exchanging bishop for knight for no good reason and rushing to play Nd2 and f3 to defend my e4 pawn, my opponent broke through on the c-file and I slumped to a deflating defeat.

In some ways, I found this loss the toughest so far, as I wasn’t sure immediately after the game where exactly I’d gone wrong. I’d simply had the sense that my position was gradually getting worse and worse before things finally collapsed. Not quite as infuriating as a one-move blunder, but perhaps more depressing. Still, I gritted my teeth and reminded myself how much I would learn from this game, and so it proved.

Day 5

As I was preparing to head to the stadium, I received an email from the arbiters to say that my intended opponent would not be able to play due to illness, and so I had another win by default. Though I wasn’t going to complain about the extra point, I felt rather uneasy at the fact that I’d now earned two of my three points without playing so much as a single move.

I decided to make the best of it and head to the stadium anyway to cheer on Lula and Caitlin, and enjoy Peter Svidler’s commentary on the elite event. This featured the likes of Vidit Gujrathi, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, and the eventual winner Gawain Jones, along with five other world-class players. There was an amusing moment early on when GM Ilya Smirin, who was playing in the Masters event, reached over the barrier to grab a bottle of Pepsi that was clearly intended only for competitors in the elite section, and received a telling-off from the long-suffering arbiter.

By this point in the tournament, I was eager to make the long trip, take in the atmosphere and talk to people. I’d had conversations with Ameet, Peter Large (another fellow club member at Kingston), and FM Peter Sowray, who remembered me from way back when I used to attend his sessions as a junior at Richmond Chess Club. I was particularly glad of Lula and Caitlin’s company, of course. Although there has been a definite uptick in female participation since I first started playing competitive chess, and more concerted efforts to make us feel welcome, twentysomething women are still a fairly rare breed on the tournament circuit, among the sea of juniors and seasoned male veterans, and so when we do encounter kindred spirits, we tend to stick together.

Before their games started, Lula and Caitlin made use of their state-of-the-art camera equipment to take photos for their online chess content. I managed to get in on the action too.

Day 6

A rest day, and one that was much needed even after my unexpected reprieve from combat the previous day. While I’d harboured some vague dream of analysing the games I’d played up until that point, I realised that that was going to have to wait until after the tournament was over, as I was simply too exhausted.

I dread to think how those who’d played all six rounds were feeling, since I’d only played four games. In particular, it seemed to me that juggling tournament play with content creation, as Lula was doing, would be particularly draining – not only did she have the added pressure of thousands of spectators watching her every move, but after every round she’d had to dash off to film, edit and post her game recap video on YouTube and chat with viewers on her live Twitch stream. It gave me a renewed sense of appreciation for all the hard work that goes into the chess content I watch every day.

Day 7

I wanted to come back stronger after the disappointing loss in round 5, and try and get another win so I could at least say that half my points had been won thanks to my efforts over the board. Round 7 proved to be extremely tense. My opponent and I were both short of time, and though I managed to grab a couple of pawns and expose his king, my king wasn’t exactly safe either. Here is how the game finished.

After another five-hour game, I mainly felt relieved and exhausted rather than elated at my win, but despite my best efforts not to get wrapped up in the tournament situation, with 4/7 I did start to dream of winning the women’s prize. I knew that I would likely have to win my last two games to make that happen, which would be a tall order. Could I do it?

Day 8

The caption to the above photo probably gives some indication as to the answer to that question. I had forgotten my theory by move 5 in another Closed Sicilian (ghosts of Brighton 2012 revisited?), and, though I reached a reasonable position out of the opening, I severely underestimated my opponent’s attacking chances.

Unfortunately, that defeat put paid to all my hopes of a prize, but I comforted myself with the thought that I could at least try and win my last game.

Day 9

Here is the final position from my game in Round 9.

Yes, that is checkmate, and yes, I am playing White. In some ways, this game bore quite a strong resemblance to my loss in Round 5, where I’d been bothered by an annoying Black bishop on a6, got tunnel vision and started simply reacting to my opponent’s ideas, missing chances to stir up trouble on the kingside, and eventually collapsing. It was rather a sad end to the tournament, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed to lose five games and win only two (not counting the two wins by default). Lula also lost in her last game and was clearly upset with herself – I gave her a hug and told her we’d come back stronger.

Post-tournament

That last sentence, I think, is the key difference between London 2024 and Brighton 2012. While I like to think that my chess understanding has now improved to the extent that I’d have the presence of mind not to resign and to find 39. Qh7! (though stay tuned for my inevitable future article, “Why I Resigned in a Winning Position”), I want to learn from these games and carry on battling, rather than giving up chess for another 10 years.

In my more pessimistic moments since the tournament, the vast difference between some of the computer evaluations when looking over the games and my initial assessment of the position has led me to question whether the hard work I’ve put into my chess over the past few months has really resulted in all that much progress. But in my heart of hearts, I know that I’m a far better player now than I would have been had I not looked at a chessboard in 2024.

That said, the prescription for my future chess improvement is the same now as it would have been back then: in the words of my coach, Graeme Buckley, “More calculation, less panic!” In many of my games, I came unstuck when I was unduly worried by my opponent’s ideas, or played moves based on general principles rather than concrete variations. I would often analyse the same line over and over again, rather than checking all the forcing moves, and then blunder when short of time.

In 2025, I’ll continue with the training plan I’ve established and pay particular attention to my emotional state during a game and how it affects my ability to focus. If anyone reading this has figured out how to maintain the necessary self-discipline to look at all the checks, captures and threats and stay cool, calm and collected with just a few minutes on the clock, I’d love to hear from you.

Though playing in the tournament will undoubtedly prove beneficial for my chess, what was even more valuable to me was the sense of community I eventually came to feel there. I’ve made new friends in Caitlin and Lula, and I’m sure my husband is grateful that I now have other people to engage in conversation over the finer points of the c3 Sicilian and the Caro-Kann.

I know it’ll make a big difference to see friendly faces in future tournaments. While I don’t think another Fide nine-rounder is on the cards any time soon (though I’m holding out hope for Hastings next year or the year after), I do plan on entering the odd weekend congress next year, and, of course, continuing to play regularly for Kingston.

So even though the results didn’t go entirely my way this time, I think we can conclude that, from the point of view of my re-entry into the chess world, the London Chess Classic was a resounding success for me. As a wise person on Reddit recently said, “Chess is a lifelong pursuit”, and whether I win or lose, I want to continue to learn and grow.