Eline Roebers

19-year-old Dutch IM

“Last year I wasn’t invited to Tata Steel Chess. I was preparing for final exams, and combining school and chess didn’t work for me. After receiving my diploma, I didn’t play in tournaments at all for the first month and a half, and then I played a tournament again for the first time together with my father — mainly to see if I could enjoy the game again. I immediately noticed that I became calmer, better at blocking out everything unnecessary and focusing on chess.

Could I become World Champion while combining playing and studying? That’s unrealistic. Look, for example, at 15-year-old Lu Miaoyi, one of my opponents at Tata Steel: she doesn’t have to go to school, she travels all over the world for chess. I can’t compete with kids like that, my situation is completely different.

But I’m still playing chess full-time. After the difficult period around the exams, I didn’t have the desire to combine chess with studies for a while. But I don’t want chess to be the only area in my life, so I’m thinking about starting to study — perhaps in the near future.”