Check & Mate

Defne and Oz take Mallory to the Philly chess tournament, where she competes alongside Oz and is coached by Defne. Mallory makes it to the second day, but she agonizes over mistakes she makes in games, something Defne tells her to channel into learning and training. Oz takes her to the evening social, where she encounters sexist comments and flirtations from some of the top players before Oz pulls her away. He explains that men like that are why many women play women-only tournaments and avoid social events at the co-ed tournaments. One of the men, Koch, is second in the world and makes sexist comments about Mallory.

After meeting Oz’s friends, Mallory escapes and goes to the pool to work out some of her anxieties over her play that day. She has no bathing suit, so she swims in her underwear and is embarrassed when she is caught by Nolan Sawyer. They do not speak, and Mallory is scared that Nolan’s temper over her defeating him will lead him to attack her in some way. When his friend provides a distraction by jumping into the pool, she quickly returns to her room.

Dressing for the next day’s games, Mallory finds herself remembering Koch’s words about whether she wore a low-cut shirt in her game with Nolan and chooses not to wear the dress she had planned. Her first game is against Emil, the friend with whom Nolan went swimming the night before. She wins and makes it to the quarter finals, where she beats her first opponent and tricks her next, Koch, into running into the end of their time so they have a draw.

Mallory is set up to play Nolan in the finals. Defne gives her suggestions for play strategies and assures her that Nolan is an adult and will not react as badly to losing as he did when he was a pre-teen. Mallory joins Nolan at their table and they shake hands, but the moderator approaches and tells Mallory that there has been an error, so she will not be playing the match.

Koch has invoked an old rule about how making any marks on scorecards other than those related to the games is banned. Mallory doodled on her scorecard, and he complains that they are a violation of the rule. Sawyer tries to stand up for her and refuse to play if they will not let her play, but if he does, Koch will win automatically. Instead, Nolan plays Koch and wins, teasing him by making it clear how easily Nolan can beat him. Mallory discovers that Nolan wins $50,000, and she is given her own $10,000 check as a semifinalist, enough money to help her pay overdue family bills. When Defne tells her how much the champions of other tournaments win, Mallory decides to change her plans on a short-term, noncommittal approach to chess.

Defne gives Mallory the Monday after the tournament off to rest, and Mallory spends it taking care of errands and driving her sisters to school. Driving them home that afternoon, they find Nolan Sawyer on their porch. He quickly realizes Mallory is hiding her chess playing from her family and plays along, pretending to be a coworker of hers. Mrs. Greenleaf invites him for dinner, and he enjoys Sabrina and Darcy’s teasing. He stays to watch TV with the girls, but when Mallory walks him out in the evening, he tells her he came to play chess with her. He seems desperate, even offering to give her the $50,000 they would have played for if Koch had not called out the rule about score sheets, but Mallory refuses to play outside of her “working” hours. He starts to question if it is related to her dad, but she cuts him off and tells him she promised herself she would keep chess at a distance before leaving him to return inside. When she goes into her room, Darcy asks about Sawyer again and reveals that she knows he is the number one chess player in the world.

Once Mallory realizes that Darcy knows the truth about Nolan and will not be convinced otherwise, Mallory admits the truth. She offers to tell their mother and Sabrina the truth so that Darcy does not have to keep a secret, but Darcy is excited at the idea of sharing a secret with Mallory.

During the next couple of weeks back at training, Mallory tries to forget about Nolan. Defne approaches her about tournaments and asks if she would be willing to join the Chess Olympics at the request of Emil. When Mallory discusses the possibility of a work trip with family, Sabrina calls her selfish and egotistical, claiming there might be an emergency while Mallory is gone that would leave them all without help, but Mrs. Greenleaf insists that Mallory go on the trip.

The next couple of months speed by as Mallory trains and takes care of her family. Finally, while at LaGuardia airport to head for the Olympics, she runs into Nolan, Emil, and Tanu, a female chess player. They are all on the same team and traveling together. When Tanu asks Mallory to take her seat on the plane next to Nolan, Mallory takes the opportunity to ask Nolan about the romantic entanglements of the trio. Nolan shares that Tanu and Emil were a couple before going to college, but he has not been interested in either one himself. The two commiserate over seeing their friends go to college without them, and Nolan implicatively affirms Mallory’s speculation that he is going to the Olympics only so he can play her.

Mallory enjoys the Olympic atmosphere and camaraderie between players. Nolan admires her play, and she becomes more comfortable with him, Emil, and Tanu. One of her opponents is a friend of Koch and displays clear antipathy. He becomes angry and challenges one of her moves, calling over an arbiter. As the arbiter approaches, Mallory recognizes her and recalls a voice from the past telling her that if she had minded her own business, none of “this” would have happened. The arbiter rules in her favor, but Mallory is frozen at the woman’s presence and offers a draw to her opponent, even though she clearly would have won. She flees, and Nolan follows her, waiting outside the bathroom. He confronts her, having noticed her upset over the arbiter, but she refuses to explain and leaves again when Nolan’s fans approach him. She compartmentalizes and clears her mind before sleeping. In the middle of the night, she finds someone has left a bag with a sandwich, drink, and snacks by her door.

Mallory’s team earns third place in the Olympic tournament and celebrates the night with other players, partying in their hostel. Mallory breaks her rule and plays chess recreationally with some of the other players at the party. She nearly initiates a flirtation with one of the women she plays, but she finds her heart is not in it that night. She tries to excuse herself, but Tanu wants her to stay with them. When Tanu calls everyone to go on a midnight pizza run, Mallory manages to stay behind. Nolan stays behind, too, and he asks her again to play. Mallory still refuses, even though she has already broken her rule, so Nolan asks her to play tic tac toe instead. They agree that the winner of each round can ask the other a question.

They go back and forth. On his first question, Nolan asks why Mallory quit, curious if it was not because of her father’s death. She tells him only that they were estranged for three years before his death. She becomes more flustered and loses more games. Nolan asks her if she knows how good she is at chess and tells her she plays differently than anyone he has ever played. She becomes angry as he challenges her decision to leave chess after her fellowship and suggests that she feels the same way about chess as he does. She asks what he wants with her, but they are interrupted by the return of the partygoers, so she goes to sleep.

After the chess Olympics and the Pasternak tournament in Moscow that Nolan attends immediately afterwards, Mallory finds out from Easton that Vanity Fair published an article about Nolan being off his game in Moscow and only getting second place to Koch. The article also claims that he and Mallory are dating. In a panic Mallory finds out his address in New York and goes there herself. She finds him exhausted and ill. She takes pity on him and buys groceries and ibuprofen, making him chicken soup. He tells her he will not correct the press about them, because he has found it never works. They talk about the press and how they treated what happened with Nolan’s grandfather, who was a chess player who got dementia and almost got Nolan killed when he was thirteen.

Mallory starts to leave, but she realizes that except for Emil and Tanu, whom Nolan refuses to bother while he is sick, Nolan has no one to care for him. She tells Defne she cannot go into Zugzwang that day and stays with Nolan, introducing him to her favorite YouTube videos. Mallory falls asleep and wakes to Nolan wrapped around her. Her phone interrupts a near-kiss, and she panics over what happened before answering a call from Defne, who tells her that Mallory has been chosen for the Challengers tournament, a high-profile competition with a large monetary prize.

Rumors continue to grow about Mallory and Nolan as Mallory ignores Nolan’s texts. More people who are not in the chess world start to hear about it, making Mallory worry that her mother and Sabrina will find out. Since news broke about her nomination for the Challengers tournament, speculation runs rampant; on a talk show, hosts talk about the possibility that she was either chosen because she is a woman or because she is dating Nolan, who they speculate pressured those choosing the players.

Defne pulls Mallory aside and tells her that although the comments about Nolan pulling strings are clearly untrue, those about Mallory being a woman are not. She shares how bad the sexism has been in the world of chess and explains that is it why she stopped competing herself and now runs the Zugzwang club instead. She explains why FIDE would choose Mallory instead of a more experienced woman, and Mallory, finally facing the part of her that thinks herself unworthy, asks her to be honest about whether Defne thinks Mallory can win the Challengers tournament. Defne replies that she thinks Mallory could win the World Championship.