The new Netflix series which embodies chess as a sport, art and science is named after the popular chess opening, “The Queen’s Gambit”. It is a fictional story of a coming-of-age girl, Beth Harmon, who wants to become the greatest chess player in the world and is based on the novel The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis and which was published in 1983.
World chess champion Magnus Carlsen gave the aired episodes five out of six stars and women grandmasters have spoken favourably about the series. Every once in a while, chess gets a boost which brings excitement and people to the royal game. It is my hope that the streaming of the Netflix series is one of those moments.
Sometime in the early 1990s, I secured the novel Searching for Bobby Fischer by Fred Waitzkin, whom I met at the World Trade Center (WTC) in 1995 when I was covering the world chess championship title match between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand for the Sunday Stabroek.
Waitzkin wrote about his son Josh who was also in attendance at the WTC to observe the match and who had previously won the US Junior Chess Championship. The novel Searching for Bobby Fischer was made into a successful movie starring Joe Mantegna and Laurence Fishburne. It is still one of my favourite chess movies.
However, and with all due deference to the Netflix series which I hold in high esteem, nothing can compare to the Fischer vs Boris Spassky 1972 title match in terms of bringing people to the celebrated ancient game. The world had never seen a mere board game transcend into something so awesome. Fischer brought the match to fever pitch.
I can recall listening to reports of the famous match on the news programme “BBC Calling”. Neither my grandfather nor I knew anything about chess, but still we were glued to the radio. It was human drama at its finest. When Fischer began winning at the halfway mark, I overheard my grandfather remark: “Like this Yankee boy mannish!” An esteemed journalist said it was much more than a chess match between two players, “It became an international incident, a struggle between two societies, a symbol of the confrontation between East and West.” In essence, America was facing Russia in the persons of the two players. The world had become mesmerized with chess.
The current Netflix series has seen a resurgence in the sale of chess sets and reading material associated with chess. Perhaps Netflix can return us to the heyday of the great cerebral indoor game.
As I am writing, Al-Jazeera is airing a story of a Filipino chess prodigy.
White: Viktor Korchnoi
Black: Anatoly Karpov
Event: World Championship Match 1981, Italy
Queen’s Gambit Declined
1. c4e6 2. Nc3d5 3. d4Be7 4. Nf3Nf6 5. Bg5h6 6. Bh4O-O 7. e3b6 8. Rc1Bb7 9. Be2Nbd7 10. cxd5exd5 11. O-Oc5 12. dxc5bxc5 13. Qc2Rc8 14. Rfd1Qb6 15. Qb1Rfd8 16. Rc2Qe6 17. Bg3Nh5 18. Rcd2Nxg3 19. hxg3Nf6 20. Qc2g6 21. Qa4a6 22. Bd3Kg7 23. Bb1Qb6 24. a3d4 25. Ne2dxe3 26. fxe3c4 27. Ned4Qc7 28. Nh4Qe5 29. Kh1Kg8 30. Ndf3Qxg3 31. Rxd8+Bxd8 32. Qb4Be4 33. Bxe4Nxe4 34. Rd4Nf2+ 35. Kg1Nd3 36. Qb7Rb8 37. Qd7Bc7 38. Kh1Rxb2 39. Rxd3cxd3 40. Qxd3Qd6 41. Qe4Qd1+ 42. Ng1Qd6 43. Nhf3Rb5. 0-1.
