Did Cleo purposefully try to sabotage Beth?

Chloe is a known chess groupie of Ben Watts. He met her at a Paris tournament and she is the kind of model that over stays her welcome because she’s bored with glamour and the fact that as she puts it, “we’re bodies that the clothes go on to show off, nothing more”. She wasn’t deliberately trying to sabotage Beth, again she is bored. I would say Beth giving into her impulses to find an excuse to drink and Chloe unknowingly enabling her is all takes for Beth to slip. So, no, there was no bad intent in Chloe asking her for a drink. Beth has no recourse for her actions when it comes knowing what is best for her (being healthy, not drinking, ignoring good influences and taking good advice, partying with strangers and having a lot of sex with most of the top players that befriend her. One might say she is flusy. Anyone would tell you she reacts to any impulse %100 or not at all. I think she enjoys the thrill!

My opinion is that Cleo was a Russian spy sent to sabotage Beth. It's clear from the scene in the elevator that the Russians know she had a substance problem. Beth meets Cleo in NY where she is a model who likes to hang out with chess players (?!) and seems genuinely interested in Beth. Then she conveniently shows up in Paris the night before Beth plays the Russian and coerces her into coming out drinking. Lastly, Townes shows up to the final match in Russian and literally says that the Russian embassy made it really easy for him to be there because the Russians thought he would distract her. Cleo is the only person Beth ever told about her crush on Townes.

I think one of the best things about this show is its subtlety but it's pretty clear that Cleo was a Russian spy.

I didn't think it was a sabotage and the show doesn't focus on that element much. But I wonder if that element was cut out of the show.

Townes in the final episode said the Russian embassy helped him get a visa perhaps to distract her. How would the Russians or anyone know she had feelings for Townes? Nothing really happened b/w them. She'd revealed to Cleo about her feelings for Townes in that drunken night.

Cleo also doesn't know chess but hangs out with chess people and was involved with Benny for a while. She could have ditched him when he was no longer a threat. She watched Beth destroy them at speed chess and realised she's brilliant.

The show didn't focus on Cleo though so she could be totally innocent. It's only because of Townes comment about the Russian embassy helping him makes this theory fit.

It's possible the show went with Cleo being a Russian plant but may have decided to cut it out.

At first I was sure it was sabotage. Chloe admits to being jealous of Beth, and doesn’t stop her after one drink, as a good friend would. However, after reading one of the answers here, about Chloe ultimately being bored, I think that’s true, Chloe is more bored with her life than anything so it’s the boredom first that causes her to let Beth put on a show, malice may be as a result.

But- Whether it was actual malice or just boredom, because of Chloe's ability to be introspective (models are empty) (and that comment about Benny, how no one can love him as much as he does himself) it makes me think Chloe was well aware of what she was doing. This was confirmed, for me, when Chloe appeared at Beth's game against Borgov, she came to watch the finale, her finale! The one she created for herself. I think that fits her character.