One of Netflix’s more popular shows, The Queen’s Gambit is a show that offers inspiration and knowledge of the classic game of chess as the main character, Beth Harmon, makes a name for herself. With the mysterious and royal aesthetic, Beth Harmon after losing her parents goes on in life to become a chess prodigy. Most who have watched The Queen’s Gambit saw it as a breathtaking story. It gave a fresh feeling to an old game still played to this day.
The early upbringing of Beth Harmon
In the beginning of the show, Beth is in a flashback of her last moments with her parents before they die in a car crash. After this flashback, the government took her into child services and put her into an orphanage. From this orphanage as she both lives and goes to school there, she finds her interest in playing chess. She begins to learn how to play chess from the orphanage’s janitor.
After months of playing, a local high school teacher recognizes her skills after he lost a game of chess to her. That same teacher was also the head of their school’s chess club. After playing against him to show her talent, he brings her back to the high school. She’s told to play against everyone from the club at the same time and after no less than two hours, she beats them all.
As she grew up to be a teen, she started entering into chess competitions to get money and improve the way she played. She also got to learn the in’s and out’s to chess tournaments and rankings. With more tournaments won, reputation building from win after win, and earning money from the rewards, Beth Harmon goes throughout the rest of the show in multiple tournaments against tough opponents.
A whimsical and entertaining limited chess series
As I watched the limited series on Netflix, I absolutely loved everything about it. The drama, the aesthetic, everything. It even gave chess a witty nature as opposed to what most may think instead as a boring game. The characters all have their own quirky attitudes as they play and interact with Beth also. The general outfits and settings of the show were all very beautiful and unique as well.
To top it all off, it was informational on not only the basics of chess, but also all of the different openings you can do when you play. It doesn’t make it seem like a headache to play either, as I said before with the general look of the show, it just adds to the fanciful theme of the story. The show encourages those who know how to play to try and play more, while also making those who don’t know about the game learn and be encouraged to play at home.
