Why I Never Told Anyone I Was a Chess Master

I want to admit something a little bit ridiculous.
I’ve been a chess master for 20 years, and for most of my life I’ve never told anyone, nor friends, nor people I’ve dated, not colleagues.
It was basically this weird secret identity that only people in the chess world knew about.
But then in that world, no one really cared as they kind of all had the same identity, right?
And it’s really bizarre when you think about it, because becoming a chess master is something most people would proudly stick in their LinkedIn bio, put on their CV and tell everyone about.
But for me, it was something I hid.
And the reason why says a lot about identity, competence, and the strange ways society treats intelligence, especially when you’re a woman.
And I felt that it was finally time to talk openly about this in this personal interlude, and to let people get to know this side of me and what I’ve been sitting on well, for most of my life.
Hello and welcome to Sniffing Out the Bullshit, a podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs who want help wading their way through the bullshit jungle of entrepreneurship and then the tools, skills, and mindset that actually required for success.
I’m your host, Sabrina Chevannes-Denman, the no bullshit entrepreneur.
So I started playing chess when I was about 8 and I very quickly became in grace of the game after getting that beautiful taste of winning for the first time, because at my first ever chess tournament, I won a medal.
I remember it so clearly.
And then at my second tournament, I won a trophy.
And that’s how it gets to it.
Just started snowballing and I loved it.
I mean, at 8 years old, right?
You just do whatever you find exciting.
You learn, you play, you enjoy.
You don’t think about the future, you don’t think about what anyone else thinks about what you’re doing.
Because if you think something’s interesting or even cool, you take part in it, right?
You don’t question it based on what you worry other people might think.
We only do that as adults.
So I play chess a lot and I got addicted to that feeling when you win.
It was incredible.
But if you’ve ever played chess as a kid, or maybe perhaps you loved maths and weren’t afraid to say it, then, well, you’re forever known as a nerd, the dork of the class.
And let’s face it, no one wants that label.
I mean, I was the weird kid who spent their weekend moving some pieces around a board instead of doing something normal, and I was definitely mocked to that.
But on the other hand, I was also quite lucky because I just happened to be good at sport, too.
That was my absolute safety.
Gross.
So when the mocking came, I just kicked their butt on the race track, on the netball court or even the football pitch.
Yeah, I was that girl in the football team with the boys, but then I also capped in the netball team and I just happened to play a dorky ass board game on top of it all, so no one really knew what to think.
The thing is, I loved my primary school, right?
They were my peeps.
Everyone was super dance worth.
And yeah, I got totally ripped on for being a dog, but it wasn’t serious.
That’s just how we were with each other back then, right?
That’s I missed that life.
Beside, people are so sensitive now and it just was like that.
I mean, these same pricks who had given me a hard time even came to my wedding.
So you know, what do the kids say these days?
It just wasn’t that deep or whatever.

But when I got to secondary school, things were a bit different.
Now I was a huge outsider, A secondary school.
I got a scholarship to this posh school basically, and I chose it because it was the number one school in the country at a time.
It had all these fancy things like big tennis courts and a swimming pool.
I mean that’s literally what made me choose a school best in the country and cool shit like parents out there.
Don’t let your kids make decisions because that’s what I based it on.
OK fine, my parents were happy because it was the best school in the country, but I based it on superficial things and it was a whole different experience to primary school.
Like I was basically the only kid from a state school there.
Actually I was one of three.
I remember this, but it was bloody obvious I was one of those and I hated it.
I definitely didn’t fit in.
So the last thing I was going to do was tell them I play chess.
I mean I needed to seem semi novel so I never told anyone ever.
And I had actually got into the England junior team just before going to that school, and I should really have told people kind of proudly that I play chess for my country.
But Nope, I was more worried about my street cred.
And you know what?
It was great.
I made new friends and I started to fit in.
Until one day the headmistress made a freaking announcement to the whole school about me winning some stupid ass British chess title and making some record.
I died, like, I remember it so well.
Everyone stared at me at least, you know, I thought everyone was staring at me as you did when you were a kid, but they were.
People were staring at me and they’re whispering.
And I mean, they were partly like, what the fuck about the chess?
But they were also just laughing hard at how much their ministers actually butchered my last name.
I mean, it was embarrassing.
And I did not hear the end of the mocking for a couple of months and I was miserable.
I because I knew this would happen, which is why I kept my mouth shut.
But it wasn’t until I got to take two weeks off school for the World Junior Chess Championships.
I literally buggered off to Spain for two weeks to play chess when everyone else had to go to school.
He was laughing now.
I mean, then they shut up because then I would buggle off to Greece for two more weeks after that to go to the European Chess Championships when I was selected to play for England again then.
And suddenly I wasn’t such a loser anymore.
In fact, they were kind of jealous, at least on the surface.
Like deep down inside, they probably still thought I was a complete dog, or at least that’s how I felt, right?
So that was like high school.

And by the time I became an adult, I had full control over whether people knew I played chess or not.
And so it felt like I could be born again.
And I didn’t want anything to do with chess.
I mean, I say that, but The thing is I was now playing chess professionally.
Like I was playing for the England team, the adult 1, and I was also coaching professionally in schools, privately and for international squads.
Like it was a huge chunk of my life.
I travelled all over the world like at least 5 new countries a year like, and I just told people I was going on holiday all the time.
Like, I don’t know, I don’t know what the what I was doing.
I mean, I just didn’t want people to know.
Like especially guys like I was young and I found it embarrassing.
Like if a guy found out that I played chess, I would consider it the worst thing that he could know about me.
Like I’d rather he think that I was a serial killer or something.
I mean, how is that?
Of course, there were a few people really close to me who know the truth or ones who’d known me since I was a kid, so they knew.
And like, sometimes people would see me in the paper and then find out.
So I couldn’t quite keep a secret from everyone, but I was really determined to.
Like I will always remember the times when I’d go out and I’d be talking to some cute guy and a mate would be like, she’s a chess master, you know, like not trying to cock block me, so to speak, but thinking she was having my back because she was trying to be like, she’s really intelligent and you know, how cool is that?
But they’d always run a mile and I hated it.
It happened over and over again.
Like guys and supposed friends would end up ghosting me after finding out that I was a chess master or that I was in medical school or I was teaching piano to adults.
They just didn’t seem to like the dorkiness of what I was doing.
All the ambition, I don’t know.
Or dare I even say the intelligence.
Like whatever it was, it repulsed them or intimidated them.
I don’t know which it was, but I was just never their cup of tea.
And I don’t like that obviously upset me.
Like I wanted to be liked.
I wanted to fit in.
Because when you’re that young, that’s all you care about.
I mean, to be fair, that’s all some people care about now.
I mean, I’ve grown out of it.
But The thing is, when you’re in your 20s, you think you know everything.
You consider yourself oh so wise and mature, but you’re basically just an ignorant and naive little baby.
And that’s what I was.
So instead of embracing who I was and owning my intelligence and my talent, I pretended I was the opposite.
I played dumb all the time, I acted stupid, I lied about what I did, I pretended I didn’t know anything whenever certain topics came up and stuff like that, just so people would like me.
Honestly, how sad is that?
How pathetic is that?
But somehow I felt way happier that way.
And guess what?
More people liked me that way.
That’s the really sad thing about it.

So me being a chess player, it was almost like my secret identity, one that only other chess players knew about.
But the thing is, in the chess world, everyone plays chess and you’re surrounded by chess masters.
Perhaps not at your average everyday chess tournament there.
I’d probably still be one of the strongest players there.
But those, boy, did I get treated differently.
And that’s a story for another day.
But let’s just say most people didn’t think I was there for the chess.
But at the professional chess tournaments, people knew who I was.
I’d been playing for years.
I was in England, international, and I travelled all over the world playing and I loved being social at these events, right?
So naturally people knew who I was.
However, I was often the weakest player in the room.
Like, I was surrounded by super grandmasters everywhere because you see, chess is extremely hierarchical.
You have ratings and titles so you can immediately tell where you stand amongst everyone else.
There’s no hiding in chess.
And I’m definitely not special there.
I’m bang average.
Actually, no, scrap that.
I’m kind of crap, or at least that’s how I felt being surrounded by those super GMs.
And I mean super GMs.
I was at events with the likes of Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, et cetera, et cetera.
And if you know a little bit about chess, you’re going to know these names and you’re going to know that they are pretty damn good at chess.
And so compared to them, I’m pants.
So I used to consider myself pants to everyone, even though ratings-wise, I was still actually in about the top 2 to 3% of chess players in the world.
Like, not the world of chess players.
That’s nuts, right?
So I still felt inadequate, yet I was still in the top 2 to 3% of chess players in the world.
Like honestly, even saying that now I’m like, that’s crazy.
But I guess that’s what happens when you’re surrounded by the top 1% in the world.
It can quickly bring you back down to earth and it’s kind of crazy that I would see myself so inferior.
Because then if you do compare me to the rest of the population, I’d be like the top 0.001% or whatever, right?
It’s nuts.
There are billions of people in the world and the odds are that in most situations I’m going to be the strongest chess player in any room by quite some way.
But yet despite that, I still spent most of my life thinking I’m not that good, which just shows how much your environment shapes how you see yourself and it really baffles me.

But can you believe that a fictional character is what changed everything?
I mean, she literally changed my life.
And I am talking about Beth Harmon because when The Queen’s Gambit came out on Netflix, chess suddenly became cool.
Suddenly people were fascinated by it and more importantly, they saw a woman playing chess at a high level.
And for the first time, a lot of people realised, oh, women can actually be brilliant at this game, yet it’s still a fictional character.
But after that show came out, the interest in chess exploded.
People were streaming chess everywhere.
And I don’t just mean the guys who’ve been streaming for a while, the pros, they’re great at it.
It was every Tom, Dick and Harry had a streaming channel about how great they weren’t at chess, they were just playing every day.
And they weren’t that good.
And then those female chess players who were streaming before, they suddenly gained massive audiences.
People started respecting them, which was great, don’t get me wrong.
And it just changed everything.
Like suddenly when people found out that I played chess, the reaction was no longer, that’s a bit nerdy, right?
It became, wait, that’s amazing.
And it’s kind of hilarious when you think about it, right?
Because nothing about my chess ability had changed.
What changed was people’s perception, all because of a TV show.
Like how fickle is the universe?
But anyway, I started embracing the wave and I started telling people that I’m a chess master and the reaction has been super interesting to say the least.
Most people are like, that’s so cool.
I used to play chess.
Like I kind of wish I didn’t stop or something along those lines, right?
It’s definitely respect is usually the kind of default response I get.
Like there are others who still say I’m a dog or that they don’t care and then it’s just chess.
But the interesting ones are the ones who immediately try to challenge me to a game, like genuinely thinking they could beat me because they now play on Chess.com each day and they made it to their peak rating of 1400, which somehow means they’re boss.
And just because they’ve heard I was an International Master, they think, OK great, I’ll be able to beat her, not realising that my rating sits 1000 points on top of them on that platform.
And it just, it really baffles me.
Like it makes me wonder what would happen if, say, a former Premier League footballer turned up to their Sunday league game.
Like would they keep trying to tackle them and would they give them stick and claim they could beat them one-on-one?
Like it’s really such a weird thing and I don’t know why, but it still bugs me when people do that because it’s like they’re disrespecting what it’s taken to get to that level and they just dismiss it.
Like it’s just so simple.
But they’ve played a few minutes a day on their phone, so that means they can beat a legitimate chess master.
I mean, if that really was the case, then I’d be able to speak fluent Chinese by now because I’ve got like a 450-day streak on Duolingo.
But yeah, somehow I can still say diddly squat.
Like yeah, people need to come back down to the real world, I think.

And it wasn’t just when I was playing chess either though.
Like remember, I’ve been a professional chess coach for over 20 years.
As I said, I’ve coached international teams.
Some of my students have gone on to become chess masters, like much better players than I am, for example.
But yeah, most of the time adult men absolutely refused to be coached by me.
They would rather pay 10x the price for a man with a lower rating and no title.
Like this happened all the time.
I never understood it.
Like I had friends, for example, male friends who would recommend me, saying that they were too busy to do coaching.
So they’d big me up.
Like they’d really big me up massively.
Like they’d give my resume, tell them all the things I’ve done.
And yeah, people would respond by going, no, I’ll just wait for you, thanks.
They’d be like, well, I’m not going to be ready for like several months or maybe in a year, so you might as well take her.
She’s got availability.
They’re like, no, no thanks, I’ll just wait.
And I just never understood it.
Like I just really didn’t.
It used to make me really down.
And then The Queen’s Gambit came out and those men, well, they were then suddenly fine getting coached by me, all because of a fictional character.
Again, I can’t get over it.
It was honestly wild.
So it was hard for me to say this whole thing has been a journey and transition.
But you know what?
Occasionally I am reminded by how unusual being a chess master actually is because every now and then someone will say, wait a minute, you’re an international chess master, and they look at you like you’ve just told them you’re an Olympic athlete.
And that’s kind of a similar sort of thing, right?
I played in the Chess Olympiad for my country.
And it’s in those moments that I realise something funny.
Because in the chess world I spent most of my life feeling average.
But outside of it, most people think it’s extraordinary.
Yet somehow I still grew up believing I wasn’t that good at chess.
And so those people who do treat me with respect and that do think it’s incredible that I’m a chess master, you guys are the ones who have helped me come out my shell to embrace it.
And I thank you because now my relationship with chess is completely different.
I talk about it openly.
I literally run corporate workshops using chess to teach strategic thinking.
I’ve built frameworks based on the lessons that chess teaches you about business.
For example, my positional advantage framework comes directly from chess strategy, because in chess, the biggest mistake that beginners make is focusing on tactics instead of position.
And it’s the exact same thing that happens in business.
People obsess over tactics, the marketing hacks, the growth tricks, the productivity hacks, when actually the real question is, is your position strong now?
Chess gave me that lens and it’s now one of the most powerful tools that I use in my work.
I never thought I’d be here.
I never thought I’d see the day where I could proudly say that I’m an international chess master.
I used to play professionally for England and now I can use everything I’ve learned over my 20 years of teaching chess and put it in my business and help other businesses grow their business, right?
All because of chess.
And it’s made me kind of annoyed that it’s taken me until now to embrace it.
And why, right?
Like I felt ashamed or embarrassed all because of some idiots while growing up.
I mean, I guess it’s not just growing up, right?
I still see it now.
So yeah, I don’t know.
I think about it and I wonder why, but I guess there’s another layer to this, right?

I recently decided to make a post about how I’m the only Black female chess master in the UK.
And actually since then I’ve been asking researchers and they don’t even know if we can find a Black man who’s UK-born and a chess master.
So I might be the only Black chess master in the UK full stop that we’re aware of, which is crazy.
So I wrote a post about it and the post got a mixed response.
It was mostly positive but still naturally a tonne of hate.
People who were saying chess is pointless.
Some saying I’m bragging.
Others saying it’s not really a big deal so why am I talking about it?
And plenty of people saying what on earth has race or gender got to do with it?
But race and gender almost are always relevant.
And I felt this was relevant here because when growing up, I never saw anyone who looked like me in the chess world.
And when you’re the only person like you in a room, it affects how you see yourself.
It affects your confidence.
It affects how much you feel like you belong.
And you also get treated very differently, which then affects your game and whether you want to even bother showing up again and again to be treated that same way.
But as I said, that’s all a story for another day.
But I think that definitely played a role in why I kept chess so quiet for so long.
If there were others who were actually like me, then maybe I would have said something earlier.
I wouldn’t have felt so different.

Because looking back now, right, the whole thing feels a bit ridiculous.
I spent years hiding something that was actually one of my greatest strengths.
Something that has given me incredible opportunities.
Something that has shaped the way I think.
But that’s often what happens with the things that make us different.
We hide them.
We minimise them.
We pretend they’re not important.
When actually, they’re the thing that give us the most leverage in life.
So for most of my life I never told anyone I was an international chess master.
Now it’s one of the things I’m most proud of, and it’s also one of the biggest tools I use to help people think more strategically about business.
And it turns out the thing that I spent years trying to hide ended up becoming one of the most powerful parts of my story.
And I really hope you’ve enjoyed hearing this story today because it’s been a real long time coming.
Me telling this story in the first place.
But I really wanted to get it out in the world, to let other little girls know how I felt and that we’re not alone when we think like this.
And I really hope that some mums can pass on this message to them and to help them embrace who they really are and to be proud of everything they achieve, no matter what it’s in.
Because the moment you feel comfortable owning the whole you, it truly is life-changing and you feel completely liberated.
I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to get here, but I feel that way now and I’m grateful.
So I thank you all for listening.
And until next week, please do keep sniffing out the bullshit.