The story behind Queen’s Gambit: The First World Champion

Queen’s gambit It has been one of Netflix’s most successful projects.Created by Scott Frank and Alan Scott and It was released on the platform on October 23, 2020championship Anya Taylor Joy She plays Beth Harmon, a fictional character based on the 1983 novel by Walter Teves.

What little is known about this character is that at the beginning of the 20th century, a character similar to Beth Harmon made history as the first female chess star. who beat high-ranking male opponents. his name was Vera Menchik He was an accomplished chess player born in Russia and competed in the United Kingdom from 1920 to 1940 She became the first women’s world chess champion.

Vera was born in Moscow in 1906 She was the daughter of Wellington Menchik, a cotton maker and estate manager for the Russian nobles, and Mary Illingworth, who was a governess to the Russian nobility. During his childhood his father started teaching him to play chess. When he was 17 years old, he joined the accelerating chess club.

As well as Beth Harmon’s character, Menchik had a difficult childhood when he grew up in the midst of the Russian Revolution of 1917 In the midst of his parents’ divorce, he was forced to move with his mother and sister to England when he turned 15 and He had difficulty integrating into society throughout his life. One of the reasons he liked chess was because he didn’t speak English very well and it was a quiet game, where you didn’t have to say anything.

He continued to play and practice his whole lifeUntil she went on to represent Hastings and Sussex County in tournaments in the 1920s, she worked with coaches and developed her skills as a chess player. She became the first woman to compete in an all-men’s tournament. One of her career-defining moments was in 1926 and 1927 where she won her first Women’s Championship in London, in turn winning the World Cup. By 1928, she again entered history by becoming the first woman to play professionally. By participating in the Scarborough Championship and one year later, she was the first woman to compete in a world championship alongside the greats.

While the fictional character Beth Harmon had an aggressive playing style, Menshek was just the opposite, sometimes sacrificing parts for the ultimate victory, which made it more strategic and peaceful than his Netflix arrogance. All this according to a biography written by Robert Tanner and published in 2016.

AG