Making chess sexy in Queen’s Gambit

MINI-SERIES: YOU CAN’T HELP BUT TO BINGE WATCH Chess scenes are accurate and follow famous games played during the Cold War.

During my lockdown sentence, I decided to watch the Netflix mini-series Queens Gambit, which premiered on 23 October. Just by the title, which hints at a popular chess opening where white intentionally allows black to capture a white pawn and being a chess fanatic, I was immediately enthralled.

You really don’t get to see much of this part of the chess world unless you are following a chess prodigy’s social media presence – which, I must admit, I do.

Nevertheless, Queens Gambit details the life and times of the fictional Elizabeth Harmon, from a tragic past to her rise to stardom and the price of admission that comes with dominating a male-driven chess world in conservative America.

The show is set during the Cold War and its creators, Scott Frank and Allen Scott, employed former world champion Garry Kasparov and Bruce Pandolfini, a New York City-based chess coach.

So all the chess scenes are accurate and follow famous games played during that era.

The game of chess has evolved over the years and people just don’t play that way anymore.

Of particular interest was Harmon vs Beltik at the Kentucky state championship, which was her rise to fame, aged only 13.

As you can imagine, a young, wide-eyed, unranked girl challenging a well-known player, Harry Beltik, who was tipped to become a grand master, leads to plenty of drama.

Harmon is often compared to Paul Morphy – the first chess prodigy, and possibly the greatest.

She epitomised his attacking play, sacrificing pieces as if they were endless, to go for decisive attacks her opponents couldn’t get back from.

That particular game was actually played by Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov and Genrikh Kasparian (don’t get tongue-tied trying to say those names) in 1955 Latvia.

Harmon wins and the chess world cannot believe a girl, much less an unranked girl, got such a decisive victory.

Harmon started learning chess in the unlikeliest of places – in a basement, being taught by a janitor of a girl’s orphanage, which makes her rise to the top all the more striking and adds layers to the characters.

I couldn’t get enough of the complexities, right down to the smallest details, about the mastery of the game and people who play it. As they announce in the final episode, when Harmon heads to Russia after conquering America to take on the Kremlin, “the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature, and the player on the other side is hidden from us”.

A word of warning ... do not start this mini-series late at night as you’ll find yourself watching it all in one go and might be late for work the next day.

The player on the other side is hidden from us