The Queen's Gambit isn't a true story, but there have been plenty of real-life Beth Harmons. Here are the best female chess players in the world.
"Queen's Gambit" has become one of the most-watched series of the last month on Netflix. The miniseries starring Anya Taylor-Joy has achieved 62 million views in its first 28 days available and this has shown that The Queen's Gambit has had a great impact on the world, as it shows female empowerment and the exciting game of chess.
They have also made it clear to us that although chess has long been dominated by male players, chess was a popular pastime among upper-class women from the Middle Ages until the 18th century. However, a woman would only be awarded the grandmaster title for the first time in the late 1970s.
In The Queen's Gambit, Beth Harmon is a nine-year-old chess prodigy, capable of playing and winning against multiple opponents at the same time. As she gets older, she begins to compete in local tournaments and quickly rises through the ranks of chess players in the United States.
Throughout this process, the athlete travels with her adoptive mother and wins various international competitions and it is thus that she gains fame for her unique style of play and genre. While the plot of Queen's Gambit is loosely based on a true story, the player who inspired her character was a male chess prodigy, Bobby Fisher.
Even though Beth is a fictional character, it is important to recognize that there are women chess players who have managed to achieve multiple recognitions for their great performance in chess.
NONA GAPRINDASHVILL
Nona Gaprindashvili was the first woman to be awarded the grandmaster title in 1978. While she had already been the women's world champion multiple times by then and won the grandmaster title, she also won the international (men's) grandmaster title after scoring two grandmaster norms, totaling 23 games against most other grandmasters. She is still an active player and maintains a rating of 2270. In 2005, she won the BDO Chess Tournament held in the Netherlands at age 64.
MAIA CHIBURDANIDZE
Until 2010, Maia was the youngest women's world chess champion and remained the world chess champion from 1978 to 1991. Like Beth, she learned the rules of chess at a young age, at just 8 years old, and won her first international women's tournament. in 1974. When I was 13 years old. She received the women's grandmaster title three years later, but would only be awarded the international grandmaster (male) title in 1984. She was the second woman to receive that title, after Gaprindashvili. Another similarity that Maia shares with Beth is that she has played extensively in men's tournaments around the world, winning a few in the '80s and '90s.
SUSAN POLGAR
Susan and her two sisters, Judit and Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by her father. She wanted to show that geniuses were not born, but made, so she set out to train her daughters in chess. Notably, Susan won her first chess tournament at age 4, playing against girls twice her age and going undefeated. At age 12 she won the Under 16 Women's World Championship. However, Polgar played mainly in men's tournaments. At 17 she was the first woman to qualify for the Men's World Championship, but she did not compete because, according to Susan herself, FIDE (International Chess Federation) and the Hungarian federation changed the rules to prevent her from going to the championship. She received the grandmaster title in 1991, the third woman to do so.
JUDITH POLGAR
Like Beth Harmon, Judit defeated people without looking at the chessboard and is described as having a very intense style of play. She also has red hair and was described by adult male opponents as having killer eyes and being a cute girl capable of crushing them. She even told herself that her performance was superior to Fisher's when he was the same age. Another interesting fact is that Judit also had a rivalry with a Russian grandmaster, Garry Kasparov. Like Beth, she lost the first time she faced him but ultimately made history by defeating him in 2002 during the Russia vs. Rest of the World match.
