More than 40 years after the BBC first dipped its programming toe into chess with , the network has returned this month with Chess Masters: The Endgame, which airs at 8 p.m. GMT on Monday nights. One the main differences between that first iteration versus today is the focus on engaging personalities in the chess world rather than just strong grandmasters.
[Update March 24: Magnus Carlsen is reportedly appearing on this week’s episode via video to give a challenge to the competitors.]
so Chess.com decided it would be illuminating to hear from one of the participants. At least one of the 12 contestants is rather well known in the chess community: WCM , otherwise known as LulaRobs on her and . Roberts has been playing and streaming since The Queen’s Gambit came out in 2020. In that time, she’s gone from unrated to nearly 1700 FIDE, and in 2022 Roberts also represented the Channel Island of Jersey in the .
Now that two episodes have aired (and she has survived the elimination of the first two weeks, but that’s our only spoiler alert), she sat down to talk to Chess.com about her participation on the show. Roberts discussed the grandiose setting at a royal hotel in Wales, whether or not she kept her identity a secret, and which part of the format most appealed to her.
Chess.com: Chess.com is happy to be here with Women’s Candidate Master Lula Roberts. You know her as LulaRobs and she’s one of the stars of the new BBC show Chess Masters: The Endgame. Lula, thanks for joining.
Lula: Hi Mike, I’m very happy to be here. You know, this is only my second time being interviewed by Chess.com, but I am very excited. It’s been a long time!
Chess.com: We’re happy to have you. There were 12 contestants on the show. You are the most recognizable as a chess content creator, and we’re gonna have some fun reliving your experiences there. But of course, no spoiler alerts. I think we all know that. The first thing I wanna know is: Why did you decide to be on the show?
Lula: So this is a question I’ve gotten a lot and I think for me it’s very important that as well as being a chess content creator, I’m helping to promote the image of chess more generally. And if chess can be on mainstream media, on television, this is really big and very good for chess. And so I very much wanted to be a part of that and promoting chess in this way.
Lula Roberts played her opening game against Nick “The Swashbuckler.”
Chess.com: Yeah, and it’s come full circle. You said on the first episode of the show that you got into chess through The Queen’s Gambit and now you are sort of, you know, giving back by becoming a star. So that’s cool to see the full circle nature of that. First episode and second episode have actually already aired. What’s been the reception so far from your friends and family now that they’ve seen a couple of episodes?
Lula: So, I hosted a watch party at my house for the first one and I had a bunch of friends over, none of whom played chess and they actually all really loved it. I think they were very invested in the people and the stories and the competitive nature of the show. So they really loved this. I did give them an impromptu chess lesson before it started so that I knew they all understood the rules, how the pieces moved, all of this, because some of them had never played chess before ever. But I think that this was very different from maybe some of their perceptions of chess for being boring or not being something that they would ever look at to actually really enjoying a show about it.
Chess.com: Yeah, so far from what I’ve seen the show is very character-driven. It only assumes a minimal amount of chess knowledge, so it’s pretty cool you were there to sort of pick up the slack. But also another character in the show is the actual setting, the great hall. I think it’s in Wales. Tell us more about where you exactly played.
Lula: Yes, so it’s in Cardiff in Wales in—I think—it’s a hotel called the Coal Exchange and it has this beautiful great hall essentially with chandeliers and dark wood and it felt very classical and so we had these beautiful chess sets to play on. Honestly, it was to a very high standard and this actually made it feel I think a bit more high pressure and put the pressure on me for playing better chess.
Chess.com: We’ll talk about that pressure in just a bit. But another aspect of this room, this great hall, which was beautiful, is that when you win, you go to the winners balcony, which is literally elevated. You’re literally looking down on the plebes who didn’t make it. What was it like ascending to the winners balcony? What’s it like up there?
The vaunted, and vaulted, winners balcony. Lula (left) was joined by Caitlin (center) and Cai, who also won their games in episode one. They looked down at the other contestant who had to solve more puzzles to try to advance.
Lula: So the winners balcony is basically just a huge relief knowing that you have gotten through to the next round and to the next episode, so you don’t have to play in the further challenges. It’s very nice. You get to see the boards from above. You can see everything that’s going on. You can see how the other contestants are doing. And this was nice because it meant that we also got to kind of see their skill level and see how they were dealing with the challenges. I think when you’re doing a competition, this is very important. You kind of have to know who your opponents are and get a sense of how they play. So this was a real advantage.
Chess.com: Yeah, and I want to actually ask you about the scouting of the competition. In episode one—we’re not revealing too much, It’s already aired—I saw Cai play this really nice move, pawn f3. Maybe we’ll include a little image of it in our write-up here. Were you, during the actual speed chess games, able to look at the other competition, or was it only when you were in the winners balcony looking down on them?
Host GM David Howell shows the aftermath of Cai’s great breakthrough …f4-f3 which was answered by Navi’s g2xf3. Cai then mated with …Re2-h2#.
Lula: I think if you had wanted to, you could stand up and walk around and look at the other games, but I think we were just all way too focused on our own games. And we did have increment, but it was a small amount. So I didn’t want to waste precious time, especially because I’m somebody who usually gets into time trouble. So you could only really look at games from the balcony.
Chess.com: This is actually not the first time that chess has been on the BBC. In the late 70s and early 80s, maybe for like a five-six year run, they had a show called The Master Game. Were you aware that existed? Did you go back and watch it? Is anything relevant in that show compared to your experience?
Lula: So I’ve only heard about it now through publicity for Chess Masters and unfortunately I’ve never seen it. I would love to see it. I don’t know how I can see it, but I love watching old clips of chess and seeing how it’s changed from then to now. I mean, even the thought that we didn’t have chess engines or digital clocks kind of at this time is crazy to me as somebody who’s very new to chess still. No, I hadn’t seen it, but I know that it was…I mean people love this show, people still talk about this show and so I would love to watch it.
Chess.com: Yeah, it’s before your time and kind of before my time. It might relive on on YouTube. So maybe we’ll dig up some episodes. Some famous grandmasters were on the show. Let me ask you, of course, about your experience. What do you think about the nicknames? I liked “The Swashbuckler”. What do you think was the best nickname? Tell me about that.
Lula: I’m very biased because my nickname came from my Instagram bio. My Instagram bio used to say “The Chess Princess.” Now it says “The Princess of Paris” because I live in Paris. Very ironic, obviously, because France doesn’t have a monarchy. But I obviously like my nickname the best. I think “The Swashbuckler” is fun. I think that “Killer Queen” is also very good. There’s a couple nicknames in the other group I think are very good, but I don’t know if those have been announced yet. So I think you’ll have to wait and see.
Chess.com: OK, I don’t know about “Charlemagne Chess,” if you want to make a major change, but might be a good time to name-drop all of your channels. You are LulaRobs on , , and . So anyway, go check out everything that you do there. What about the actual trash talking? I don’t know if I can call it trash talking, but there was definitely talking during the games. Did you enjoy that?
Lula: Yes, I’m very used to talking during games because I stream and play chess at the same time, so this requires you to be able to talk whilst playing. I think that, especially in episode one, we had all just met, so I was a bit nervous to trash talk my opponent because I didn’t want to be rude to somebody who I had just met, you know? And this would obviously, you know, paint me as the villain. I didn’t want that. But there was a little bit of banter, a little bit of very gentle trash talking. And I definitely do use this as a distraction technique to try and get the upper hand on my opponent.
GM David Howell, a familiar face on Chess.com, is one of the three presenters.
Chess.com: Well, in that first episode, you also outed yourself as a chess content creator. Basically, you’re a professional in the world of chess. Did you think about keeping that a secret or did you intentionally do it to sort of maybe intimidate your competition? Was there any thought into that decision?
Lula: Well, my thought process was that I had been directly asked by Nick, “What do you do?” And I didn’t have like an alibi. I didn’t have a fake identity that I had thought up. So I didn’t know what I should tell him. And I thought that it was going to come out sooner or later. And maybe even telling him before our game started would have given me psychologically the upper hand. I don’t know if that worked or not, but I thought that there was no good in lying about it at the very least.
Chess.com: Yeah, I once interviewed a contestant that was on Survivor and he was a chess player and he hid that fact because he didn’t want to get voted out as the quote “smart guy, the tactical guy.” Of course, it’s a little different in your situation. What about the show? Did you train extra going into the actual filming of the show?
Lula: I mean, anyone who has ever watched my stream will know that I’m very bad for this and I don’t study. And so, no, I didn’t train extra for the show. I think I was quite nervous on the leadup to the show. Obviously I’d never done anything like it before. And so I was quite preoccupied by just the idea of being on TV. And I think that that’s very normal. And I think most people would have this response because it’s such a huge difference to anything I’ve ever done. So I didn’t train; I probably should have trained more. I think a lot of my opponents did train more for the show. So yeah, I think obviously you can always do more than you did. And for me, this is no exception.
Chess.com: Let’s talk about the competitive format. There’s some blitz chess or speed chess. Then there’s also some puzzle solving. Which of the formats do you think favored you the most?
Lula: This is a good question. I think that the puzzles that we’ve seen so far in episodes one and two are very unlike what you would think of as a standard chess puzzle. So I am not convinced those would have played to my strengths particularly because I would have had no experience solving puzzles like this. With that in mind, I think probably the games are my strong point. I think I obviously have done quite well in the games so far. I haven’t had the white pieces so far though, so maybe we just need to wait and see if I get the white pieces and see what happens.
Losers of the blitz game had to solve this “The Bashing Bishop” puzzle as quickly as possible to stave off elimination. The white bishop must capture all the black pawns in sequence, making sure to capture one per turn.
Chess.com: Well, is there an arbiter on set? I think some of the matchups were done a little bit randomly, but is there somebody on set who’s like, you know, really well versed in proper chess competitions?
Lula: Yeah, so I was wondering about this before the show and it is listed in the credits when you watch the show. We had a couple of experts, chess professionals on site. So we had an arbiter, we had chess consultants. And I think anytime you see chess in TV and movies, hopefully there’s a chess consultant. We definitely did have some chess consultants. They were very helpful. You know, everything was very well explained. I saw a couple of comments on touch-move, which is something that’s big in chess because obviously we didn’t use touch-move in the show. We used clock-move, which means that you can touch pieces and not have to move them, which is probably the biggest difference between the chess played on the show and the chess played in tournaments. But yeah, there were chess experts on site.
Chess.com: That’s great, yeah, the production looked fantastic. Let’s talk a little bit about the British nature of the show. From what I saw, you’re from Jersey — not New Jersey — the Channel Islands. I saw a contestant from Wales, Scotland, of course, England. I don’t know if there was a Northern Ireland contestant, but what we want to know as Americans is: Did you have any trouble with the accents? Because we do have trouble with the accents.
Lula: Honestly, no. I think, OK, so I think Caitlin has this gorgeous, almost Glaswegian accent. And I love Caitlin’s accent, but she maybe is a little bit hard to understand at times when she speaks very quickly. But honestly, I love the way that it sounds. It’s very melodic. I think that, personally, as someone who didn’t grow up on the mainland in the UK, I wasn’t exposed to so many different regional accents in the UK, but I honestly love to hear them as well. Claire’s Welsh accent is amazing. I honestly love them. It brings so much more insight into people’s characters and personalities. But no, I personally didn’t have any problems understanding people.
Chess.com: That’s funny. Now, of course, we’re being very careful not to reveal anything that has not been aired. Is it hard for you to keep the secrets that you know that we don’t know? Even I don’t know, I should mention. I don’t know anything that the public doesn’t know. Is it hard?
Lula: It was hard at first when I found out that I was going to be on the show and it was hard when I went to film the show and kind of all that period there where lots was happening. With the show airing, this has actually been the easiest part because at least I get to talk about the fact that I did the show. This has been really exciting obviously for my friends and my parents to watch because I wasn’t allowed to tell them anything. So I think actually this has been the easiest part so far.
Chess.com: Interesting. Did you have a watch party [for episode two]? Are you going to have one for every future episode?
Lula: I did have a very small watch party for this week’s episode. Maybe, I don’t know, there’s definitely an interest there, but I mean, it’s a Monday night, so I’m not sure if I’m up for hosting every Monday.
Chess.com: All right, and finally, you are in the chess world. You’re making a living out of chess as a player, content creator. You represent Jersey at the Olympiad. Did you feel like you were a favorite going in, just the fact that you’ve been absorbing chess for the last five years?
Lula: This is a good question because I was thinking about this myself on the show, knowing that, you know, since I learned chess, I’ve been doing chess in a very concentrated way. However, a lot of the people on the show have just been playing for so much longer than me. And so it’s very hard to say who is more experienced. I think, I mean, you’ve got people like Cai, who I think also learned to play relatively recently. You’ve got people like Caitlin who learned as a kid, she played as a junior, and then she took a break and she came back to it, which is a story that we see a lot in chess. And then we’ve got Claire, you know, who’s played her whole life. It’s very, very hard to say, you know, who is the most experienced chess player. I think that doing chess in a consistent and concentrated way is extremely helpful, but I think there are some things in chess that only, you know, experience like learning over the years can teach you.
Chess.com: Yeah, and you know, one of the more famous content creator type things that people do on the internet is they try to guess the Elo. Were you constantly, at least internally, looking at the players and trying to say, that person is this level, that person is that level?
Lula: Yes, absolutely. And we didn’t know each other’s levels going into the show and obviously nobody wanted to tell what their level was, what their Elo was. And I think that it’s actually still quite hard to gauge in even like the first episode because what you see of one another is quite limited. Like I said, you don’t really get to watch each other’s games unless you want to compromise your own time. So absolutely I was trying to figure out you know who is the toughest competition here, like who do I think I’ll have to really work hard to beat this kind of thing.
Chess.com: Fantastic stuff. There was gamesmanship on the board and gamesmanship off the board. And we all know you’ve survived two episodes. That’s all we can say! It airs Monday nights, is that right, on BBC?
Lula: Exactly, at 8 p.m. GMT.
Chess.com: Very good. Chess Masters: The Endgame. We were happy to be joined by Women’s Candidate Master Lula Roberts. You can find her at LulaRobs on all of the appropriate streaming content channels. Even though the show is already concluded, good luck the rest of the way, Lula.
Lula: Thank you, thank you. I’m very excited for next week’s episode and I hope you are too.
Chess.com: I am. Thanks for your time.
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