Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Beth travels to New York with Benny, practising Russian and playing chess aloud during the drive. His cramped apartment becomes their training base, where he stresses preparation and the Soviet players' habit of helping one another. When his friends visit, Beth beats Benny and the others at simultaneous speed chess. She avoids drinking during this work and begins a sexual relationship with him, although his immediate return to discussing Borgov afterward frustrates her. She leaves for Paris better prepared for another encounter with the champion.
Beth advances through the Paris tournament until Borgov is her next opponent. Cleo invites her out the night before the match, and Beth abandons her quiet evening for drinking. The following morning catches up with the opening scene of the series: she wakes late and hurries downstairs, hungover. Against Borgov, she cannot make her preparation count and loses again. Returning to Kentucky, she faces Allston's demand to sell the house. Beth negotiates to buy it herself, ending his claim over her home.
A Christian organisation offers support for the Moscow trip, but Beth spends her days drinking alone and ignoring calls. At a local chess event, she encounters Annette Packer, who remembers their first tournament together. Harry finds Beth there and tells her he is worried about her drinking, drawing on what he remembers of his own father. Beth returns to the house, where an unexpected visitor arrives at her door: Jolene, the friend she left behind at the orphanage.