CHESS SETS

were the must-have gift this Christmas after the success of Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit (Santa sadly did not bring us the HK$46,400 maple Hermès set we asked for). The series follows the rise to stardom of orphaned chess prodigy Beth Harmon, played by Anya Taylor-joy. As the game’s popularity boomed off the back of the series, Hong Kong’s own young, female chess master (and, funnily enough, another doublebarrelled Anya) has stepped into the limelight: Anya Corke Allen might not have had the same tragic beginnings as Harmon’s fictional character, but both began playing at the age of nine, found few other women in the scene, and learned Russian to better understand the country where many of the world’s top players originate. Raised in Hong Kong, Corke Allen, who was taught to play by her father, is the youngest ever Us-born female grandmaster. Sadly, the sexism faced by Harmon was not fictional, Corke Allen has said in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “I’ve dealt with my fair share of shocked and irate male opponents who were more upset about losing to a girl than about the loss itself.” However, she adds: “The game is a great equaliser in that respect. It doesn’t matter if you are a 13-yearold girl or a 70-year-old man; it just matters how well you can play.”