Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

MALLORY GREENLEAF, WHO . . . EXISTS.


Soon to turn 21, Mallory Greenleaf is currently ranked No. 5 in the world . . . and yet she is the world champion. It might seem counterintuitive, but whereas the world champion is determined by a specific tournament, the ranking is a combination of all the games a player undertakes.

But don’t let Greenleaf’s “lowly” No. 5 fool you: the only reason she’s not ranked higher is that her path to chess was very unusual. A high school graduate from New Jersey with a GM father, Greenleaf played in unrated tournaments from ages 5 to 14, then returned to chess at 18, just in time to triumph in the last World Chess Championship, which took place two years ago in Venice, Italy. Greenleaf defeated Sawyer on the twelfth match, after eleven draws. As the first woman to not only qualify for but also win a chess championship, she made headlines. For her chess abilities, sure, but also because . . .





NOLAN SAWYER AND MALLORY GREENLEAF . . . WELL. IT’S UNCLEAR.


Rumors regarding a possible relationship between the two players abound, but they have not been confirmed, as both Sawyer and Greenleaf have refused to answer questions about their private lives. That said, they are regularly photographed together holding hands. According to her Instagram post, when Greenleaf dropped off her sister at Brown University last fall, Sawyer was present. Sources close to the two have revealed that they live together in the same Tribeca apartment that was once Marcus Sawyer’s. And then, of course, there was the long hug between them that happened in front of the cameras after Greenleaf defeated Sawyer in the World Championship (noteworthy, in a sport whose players usually limit themselves to a handshake). There is also the fact that three months ago Sawyer appeared to lean in and playfully bite Greenleaf’s ear while walking away from the final game at the Linares International Chess Tournament, in which he defeated her. Plenty of clues have given rise to speculations, but whether Sawyer and Greenleaf are soon to be the first family of chess, or are just good friends, is still unknown. And yet . . .





NOLAN SAWYER AND MALLORY GREENLEAF WILL BE PLAYING AGAINST EACH OTHER.


When Nolan Sawyer dominated this year’s Challengers tournament, therefore adjudicating a spot as Greenleaf’s opponent in Montreal, the possibility that the next World Championship might be a romantic affair became titillating. Could the two be just good friends? Yes, undoubtedly. But what if they aren’t? What if in addition to being adversaries, they also brush teeth side by side in the morning and know the other’s go-to take-out orders? What if they can read each other’s minds over the chessboard, or they have inside jokes about the other’s weaknesses?

The idea is simply fascinating. And it’s probably the reason so many people have shown interest in chess in the last two years: first they were drawn by the brilliance of these two talented players, then they decided to learn to play chess themselves, and then they realized that . . .





CHESS IS COOL, ACTUALLY.


The sale of anything chess related— sets, timers, accessories, tutorials, online classes, apps— has soared following the most recent World Championship, and the wave is here to stay. What’s most notable is that interest in chess is, for the first time in decades, higher among women than men. Furthermore, there are currently more women and nonbinary people in the FIDE Top 500 than ever before. “It’s because we feel that the environment is less and less hostile to us,” GM Defne Bubikoğlu, Greenleaf’s main trainer and owner of chess club Zugzwang, told us. Her club has been thriving, officially surpassing Marshall, New York City’s historic chess club, in membership.





IN CONCLUSION . . .


We don’t know how the World Championship will play out. But we do know that because of the circumstances surrounding it, more people will be tuning in than ever before, and for the first time in decades, chess players are becoming household names. And whether the more juicy, romantic aspects of this championship are true or simply rumors, the fact remains that they make for compelling narratives.

And if you “ship them hard” and “want to believe,” you might enjoy this little clue: three weeks ago, at a charity event, Nolan Sawyer— who is a notoriously bad loser— did not stop to take questions from journalists. But eyewitnesses reported that when asked how he felt about the possibility of Mallory Greenleaf accruing enough points to take the No. 1 spot from him, he simply smiled before walking away.





Author’s Note


The study on gender stereotypes and chess performance that Defne mentions in the book is real. It was published by Maass et al. in 2008 in the European Journal of Social Psychology, and then replicated by several other research groups in the following decade. Fun fact: it’s the study that first sparked my interest in chess.

In 2008 I was trying to decide what to focus on for my undergraduate thesis, and in one of my classes I came across the concept of stereotype threat: when people find themselves in situations in which their social group is stereotyped to be inferior, they are more likely to perform poorly (I highly recommend you check out Claude Steele’s original study on the topic, and anything by Nalini Ambady’s group, but if you run into paywalls the Wikipedia entry will do). I was immediately interested in the idea, and delighted to find out that there was a research group on stereotype threat in my uni. I started reading their studies, hoping to convince one of the profs to take me on as an advisee, came across the chess study, and the rest is history. Okay maybe not history, but: I’d learned how to play the game as a child (very poorly), but I’d never thought about the players much. I hadn’t known about the gender gap, but once I found out I began looking forward to seeing it bridged. The idea of a story set in the world of chess percolated through my head for years— until 2021. I was anxiously waiting for my adult debut to come out, and it was finally time for me to write “my chess book.” Full disclosure: when it comes to the chess, I took lots (AND LOTS) of poetic licenses to move the story along (plot before realism?) and if you noticed them . . . I’m so sorry. I hope you were still able to enjoy Mallory and Nolan’s journey.