Lula (lularobs)

lularobs is a chess streamer from Jersey, UK. She started playing chess almost a year ago, when "The Queen's Gambit" was capturing the attention and imagination of audiences all over the world. She started streaming shortly after -- since then, she's gained 3,500 followers on Twitch, and recently became a partner streamer with Chess.com. A few days ago, she won the second edition of the Dragon Masters tournament on Chess.com -- her first ever tournament!

Her chess skills have progressed rapidly as well; she's gone from a total beginner to nearly 1500 elo in just under a year, and Lula recently hired a chess coach for more focused improvement. She might also the world's biggest fan of 1.b4, the Polish Opening. Having watched her streams over the past few weeks, I can say that she has a very bright future both as a chess player and as a streamer. It was a delight to have Lula on the show, and I am so glad that we did this podcast episode.

We talked about...

• What effect did "The Queen's Gambit" have on Lula's decision to start playing chess? How did her perception of "chess players" change over time, and how were her first days of streaming?

• The Dragon Masters online tournament -- how she prepared for her first ever chess tournament, and how she felt after winning the whole event

• Twitch discussion -- dealing with backseating, tilting in front of viewers, and Lula's strategies for growing her stream over the last year

• What makes Chess so watchable compared to other games?

• Impostor syndrome across the rating ladder, plus a mention of Garry Kasparov's connection to Hearthstone

• Lula discusses her upcoming OTB tournament in a few weeks -- her first ever! -- and her plans for chess improvement and stream growth over the next few months

• As always, another edition of Aimchess Instant Insights

Thanks as always to Aimchess for sponsoring the podcast -- use code "DAVID30" to get 30% off of your first month with Aimchess!

Thanks so much to lularobs (twitch.tv/lularobs) for coming on the podcast -- hope to have you back again! Follow her on Twitter here!

Follow me on Twitter and Twitch! Thank you so much as always for listening.