TV drama The Queen’s Gambit sends sales of chess sets soaring among young people
CHESS has l ong been considered the preserve of middle aged men in corduroy jackets playing matches in drab village halls with coverage confined to specialist magazines.
But the success of glossy Netflix show The Queen’s Gambit has created a resurgence for the game not seen since the early Seventies.
Young people are driving the boom with many announcing on social media they are learning the game after the record-breaking series introduced it to a new generation.
The series, starring Anya Taylor-joy, is based on a 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis.
It follows Beth Harmon, a talented young orphan, who rises up the ranks in the male-dominated world of competitive chess to pursue her dream of becoming a grandmaster.
A 215 per cent increase in chess set sales and accessories has been recorded by ebay since The Queen’s Gambit was released in October and John Lewis has seen a 121 per cent rise since August.
Malcolm Pein, The Daily Telegraph chess correspondent who owns the London Chess Centre, said it was evident from the soaring interest in beginners’ lessons that young people were eager to learn the game.
He said: “Sales of basic chess sets have dramatically increased and there has been a three-fold increase in people asking for lessons, many of them young adults.”
Mr Pein’s charity, Chess in Schools and Communities, established to introduce the game in state schools, has also seen a spike in inquiries.
Netflix announced this week that more than 62 million households watched The Queen’s Gambit in its first 28 days, a record for a limited series.
Google searches for “How To Play Chess” have hit a nine-year peak, and Chess.com has revealed that three million players are now logging on daily, compared to 1.3 million in March.
The game has not witnessed such a boom since 1972, when the American, Bobby Fischer, challenged the Russian, Boris Spassky, for the World Chess Championship played against the backdrop of the Cold War.
Since then it had been in a “long, slow decline,” according to Leon Watson from the Play Magnus Group, the tech firm founded by world chess champion Magnus Carlsen. “The Queen’s Gambit has broken down stereotypes, supercharging the boom and pushing it into the mainstream,” he said.
Mark Rivlin, editor of the English Chess Federation’s e-newsletter said The Queen’s Gambit had provided “the icing on the cake” for a game that had already witnessed a resurgence during the coronavirus lockdown.
“It’s been a huge boom for chess and we’re thrilled that it’s suddenly become cool. The reality is that it used to be old, white men like me playing in a hall somewhere, with few women or ethnic minorities, which clearly doesn’t reflect society,” he added.