Anna Cramling played a Secret Queen exhibition match with Fabiano Caruana in a video on her YouTube channel on February 13. Fabiano Made his “A” pawn a Queen, and Anna chose the ‘E’ pawn.

Secret Queen is a chess variant where players secretly select one of their eight pawns to be a ‘Secret Queen’. The chosen pawn appears as a normal pawn but can move like a queen at any time. If a player moves his king into the path of a secret piece, he loses instantly.

Fabiano revealed his Secret Queen to win a pawn by giving a check to the Anna’s king, unknowingly placing his piece under attack from Secret Queen. Cramling, under the emotional pressure of the check, forgot about her hidden piece and didn’t capture Caruana’s queen. The pawn that Fabiano captured on the next move was Anna Cramling’s Queen. She reacted to the situation:

Anna Cramling

Anna Cramling

Swedish WFM, content-creator

“What if that was…”

Gets checked by Fabiano’s Secret Queen

“…your Secret Queen!?”

Blocks check and forgets about her Secret Queen

“Oh noo! And that was my Secret Queen! I completely forgot the rules of this game…”

Swedish WFM Anna Cramling is a Twitch streamer and content creator with 1.64 million subscribers on YouTube. American GM Fabiano Caruana is World No. 3 who is widely considered one of the most elite players in chess history. His most notable achievements include reaching an all-time top-three rating, challenging for the World Title in 2018, and winning the U.S. Championship 5 times.

Credit: Anna Cramling YouTube