I think the story works better if she’s playing against men, especially in the femdom paths where there is a component of fetishizing women being superior to men. I confess that I lack a good feeling of what rating would a rising star have and whatnot, I just based her ranking on the rules to obtain the title of Grand Master.
There are only 39 female chess players in the world who hold the title of Grandmaster (GM), so, if Jen gets it she would be on the very top of female chess players.
Streamer: "Jen was a great player when she was younger, she even got her rank over 2500 when she was around 16 years old,(…)”
Jen: "But since that was when I had just turned 18, I was also starting college at the same time. In this very same university actually."
Jen: "Let's just say things did not go so well."
Jen: "I blew up my chess rating, and didn't even finish the first semester at college. My self-esteem took a real hit..."
So, the idea is that she went over 2500 when she was 15/16 (satisfying the rating criteria to get the GM title), being that her peak rating, but then, at 18, “blew up” her rating. Which was left vague to try to avoid giving too many details and potentially creating plot holes. But you can imagine that, at the current time, she’s like 2300-2400.
Now, is it too unrealistic that a chess prodigy teenager passes 2500 ( but never gets 3 norms, only 2), to then face some mental health issues that takes her away from chess, until she tries to come back at 21 to get the GM tittle? I’ll be honest, I have no idea. But it sounds at least plausible to me.
With this I tend to disagree more. While that rating would place her at the top of women chess, she’d be “nobody” in the whole chess world. I mean, the top players today (equivalent to the ones you mentioned) are all in the top 2700 and some (14 of them), have even crossed the 2800 rating at some point. A difference of 300 rating points is huge.
A rating of 2500 places you in the 720 top players in the world. I follow chess casually, but I’ve never heard of Baldauf, Marco, Schoppen, Casper or Speelman, Jon S, thee european players with a rating of 2500. And, remember, Jen’s current rating is lower than that.
Of course this is different for women. A current rating of 2400 would place Jen in the top 50 women in the world. Which might be exaggerated, I don’t know. But it’s not like you can tell me more than 5 female chess players, can you? Would you have heard of some top 50 women chess player, even if 5 years ago she had been top 15?
We should also not forget that she’s being invited to open tournaments every month and received a chess scholarship. How good do you have to be to earn yourself one of these?
I don’t know, I’ll concede that some of this might be unrealistic, but I’m not convinced that it isn’t at least
plausible, as in, in a parallel universe,
it could have happened. No?
And, all things considered, I think it makes for a better story to have her playing against men in “top” tournaments, struggling to get the Grand Master tittle, instead of in “lower” tournaments (or even against women) . I mean, she doesn’t have to be a Beth Harmon (or a Polgar sister), but it seems reasonable to follow the story of someone that’s trying to enter in the top 700 of chess players.
(Moreover, I like showing great games played by the likes of Carlsen, Kasparov or Paul Morphy. It would also be a kind of plot hole have such a “weak” 2300 player perform such games).
I’ve also notice it. In my defense, it wasn’t “a forest”, it was just a nearby trail walk near a river/shore. But yeah.
