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Wherever Sultan-Diego LeBlond goes, a chess club follows. Or maybe thats just how it feels. Chess is that significant a part of the 25-year-olds identity.

Instead of asking his parents for video games for his birthday in middle school, LeBlond wanted a new chess board. At Northwest High School in Germantown, joining the chess team helped LeBlond make friends and competing in tournaments took him out of Maryland for the first time. While studying for his associates degree in business at Montgomery Colleges Germantown campus, LeBlond revived the schools dormant chess club and became the teams president. In 2015, he co-founded the Germantown Library chess club, where he would teach the game to children.

I know what chess has done for me in my life, LeBlond says. And I knew what it has done for me, it could do for other people.

By the time he arrived at Howard University as a transfer student in the fall of 2017, LeBlond had established himself as a seasoned chess player and organizer, but he didnt immediately join the schools chess club. Thats because one didnt exist. It didnt take long for LeBlond to change that.

In the spring of 2019, he helped Howard University officially re-activate its chess club, which had not been operating for years, with assistance from Nisa Muhammad, the schools assistant dean for religious life (who is now the clubs adviser), and other chess enthusiasts LeBlond met on campus.

Last month, the fledgling team competed at the 2020-2021 Pan American Intercollegiate Championship, the biggest collegiate chess tournament of the year, and finished at the top of its division and 45th out of 59 teams overall. The three-day event was held virtually on chess.com and at a later date than usual. One of Howards members, senior Azeezah Muhammad, an unrated player heading into the tournament, scored the largest upset of the championships by beating a player with a rating in the 1200s. The United States Chess Federation uses a rating system ranging from 100 to nearly 3000; the higher the number, the stronger the player.

It came by like a shock, says LeBlond, who graduated from Howard last year and now serves as the clubs volunteer head coach. We were just playing to have fun and coming in with no expectations. And so we was caught like way off guard. But at the same time, I was confident in everybodys capabilities Anything can happen in a game of chess.

The history of chess at Howard University dates back more than a half-century. Digital copies of the schools yearbook, The Bison, reveal that students participated in a chess club as early as the 1940s. Theres been an official chess club at the school off and on for decades, says David Mehler, president and founder of the nonprofit U.S. Chess Center located in Silver Spring.

Mehlers father taught at Howard and Mehler himself has seen several iterations of the Howard chess club, including a team that reached reasonably high levels in the early 2000s. That club eventually dissolved due to lack of interest, Mehler says. And according to the university, before this year the team last competed at the Pan-Am Championship in 2005.

Im hopeful that with the success that the team just had, that will generate a lot more interest, Mehler says.

Michele Bennett didnt know about this history when she arrived at Howard University. Bennett, a sophomore, learned how to play chess from her father around the age of 8 and competed in a couple tournaments in her hometown of Las Vegas while in elementary school. She didnt play once she got to middle school and hadnt really thought about chess until she started college.

During her freshman year, Bennett was reading messages on the schools GroupMe when a post about a chess club caught her attention. She reached out for more information and eventually attended the weekly practices. Less than a year later, she was elected the clubs president.

I kind of forgot how much I love chess, she says. It awakened my love for chess.

What started as a group of around a half-dozen members has evolved into a club with a group chat of more than 100 people and weekly meetings and practices that draw around 20 active members, Bennett says. Even during the pandemic, the club has held weekly gatherings on Google Meet that last more than an hour.

Bennett was one of the four players who competed at the Pan-Am Championship, along with Azeezah Muhammad and seniors Toni Anthony and Malcolm Wooten, the vice president of the club. Shortly before the tournament, organizers at the Pan-Am Championship contacted Nisa Muhammad about Howard participating in the virtual event. The club put together a team within a months time and called its former coach, Zahir Muhammad, for help.

Zahir is a celebrity in the D.C. chess world. A Ward 7 native, his father taught him how to play chess when he was 3 by defeating him like 500 times in a row, Zahir recalls. His competitiveness motivated him to keep playing. Zahirs singular goal at the time was to beat his dad and finally, four years later, it happened. He was just getting started.

In 2018, the D.C. Council presented Zahir with a ceremonial resolution after he won the District of Columbia Scholastic Cup Chess Tournament the year prior. During his senior year at DeMatha Catholic High School, Nisa, a family friend, asked if he could help coach the newly re-activated Howard University Chess Club.

Having grown up in D.C., Zahir enjoyed visiting the Howard campus during festivals or homecoming and was familiar with the school. At 6-foot-4, he blended in with the college students. He happily agreed to be the chess clubs coach and soon became the expert voice that the players relied on.

Zahir, a Class A-rated player with a rating in the 1800s, hasnt been as involved this past school year but was pulled in to act as a barometer for the team in preparation for the Pan-Am Championship. He watched the games online with pride. Throughout the tournament, Zahir thought back to the weekly practices, where members would often ask him to stay longer so they could practice more.

It would be dark outside, cold and dark, he says. And we would be playing.

As Zahir has gotten older, his motivations for playing chess have evolved. It began with wanting to beat his father. Then, Zahir wanted to win tournaments. And now, the freshman at Louisiana State University hopes that he can inspire other Black kids to pick up chess to compete in an environment that doesnt have many Black faces. Howard University was the only HBCU that participated at the Pan-Am Championship.

The fact that the school exceeded expectations at the tournament gives him joy. Zahir believes it will inspire other Black students to pick up chess.

It makes me feel, I would say validated, but not for me personally, but for them, because theyre all extremely talented. And theyre extremely smart, he says. And it makes me feel validated for them, because they can show on their level that, yeah, Im Black, and Im talented, and Im smart.

Daaim Shabazz has been writing about Black chess players for 20 years for his online magazine, The Chess Drum. An associate professor of business at Florida A&M University, Shabazz is considered by some to be an amateur historian of Black chess.

Being in D.C. gives the Howard University Chess Club certain advantages that other HBCUs may not have, Shabazz says. The chess tables at Dupont Circle have drawn some of the games most legendary players, and beyond that, the D.C. area has a chess culture that few cities rival.

You have a chess history in the D.C.-Maryland area that is very well-established in terms of producing master-level players, Shabazz says. Particularly in the Maryland area, but D.C. as well. D.C. has a lot of pockets of activity. So Howard has an advantage in that they have the infrastructure. If they want to play in local tournaments, they can do that. It wouldnt be a problem.

Members of the Howard University Chess Club hope that will be the case.

Their success at the Pan-Am Championship has led to a spike in interest from students. Fascination in chess has increased during the pandemic, and the recent popular Netflix series The Queens Gambit contributed an even bigger boost. YouTube and Twitch have also given the centuries-old game a modern twist when it comes to spectating matches.

One thing that chess players have been trying to do is trying to make chess look cool, LeBlond says. And so like, The Queens Gambit did a phenomenal job on that. It broke down that barrier that chess is boring, that chess is like for people that are strange or socially awkward. Thats not true. Theres cool people that play chess. And so that movie opened the door [to] what is chess.

Nisa looks to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a model she hopes the Howard chess club can emulate. One of the teams long-term goals is to give out scholarships for chess, like UMBC does.

We want Howard Universitys chess club to be seen as an intellectual sport, Nisa says. We want the chess club to grow to where we have it endowed and funded so that we can offer chess scholarships to students who have the chess skills.

LeBlond has the same vision, and although he is no longer a student at Howard, he intends to stay involved with the schools chess team. Bringing back the club was only the first step. He wants to see it grow.

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How a Recent Howard University Alum Revived its Chess Program - Washington City Paper

GM Peter Svidler won his first ever Titled Tuesday on February 9. Helped by his beloved Grunfeld, the eight-time Russian champion grandmaster was the only player to score 10/11 and finished ahead of GM Aleksandar Indjic (@Beca95) and IM Liam Vrolijk (@LiamVrolijk).

This week's Titled Tuesday tournament had a total of 729 participants. It was an 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.

The live broadcast of the tournament.

On paper, one of the favorites was definitely GM Alireza Firouzja. Early in the event, the Iranian prodigy was fortunate (twice!) in his game with the Ukrainian GM Vladimir Onischuk (@Onischuk_V).

It was Svidler who defeated Firouzja when both players were on 5.5/6. Svidler played the Grunfeld and followed an old recommendation of his against a sideline with Bg5. Interestingly, he then maneuvered his fianchetto bishop from g7 to d6 and played as if it were an Exchange Queen's Gambit.

After nine rounds, the Kazakh grandmaster Rustam Khusnutdinov (@RD4ever) was the sole leader with 8.5/9. With the black pieces, Svidler, who had dropped two half-points, defeated the leader, again following his trusted Grunfeld repertoire.

Svidler pulled through with yet another Grunfeld win with the black pieces in the final round. This time he defeated GM Rasmus Svane (@rasmussvane), who was slightly better in an endgame when he played a few inaccurate moves in a row.

Feb. 9 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Svidler won $750 for first place, Indjic $400 for second, Vrolijk $150 for third, and GM Kirill Alekseenko $100 for fourth. Vrolijk's result was especially excellent; we also mentioned him last week for coming in 10th place twice.

The $100 prize for the best female player went to the Peruvian WIM Ann Lindsay Chumpitaz Carbajal, who scored 8/11.

Titled Tuesday isChess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It starts each Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time (19:00 Central Europe).

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Titled Tuesday: Svidler Winning With Grunfeld - Chess.com

On the face of it, having a chess game without actually letting the player play chess seems a bit of a mad idea. But in the minds of those at QUByte Interactive, it obviously works. After first releasing on PC, its now time for Knights Retreat to make a move on to Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

There arent a huge amount of chess titles already available on console, with the only real options being that of Pure Chess, Chess Ultra and Brawl Chess. Now though theres Knights Retreat, but whilst on the surface this may come across as a chess title on console, youll soon discover that its not. Yep, this is a chess game, without chess.

Priced at just 3.29, Knights Retreat has come to console via the QUByte team as they give you the chance to work with a range of troops in order to allow your Knights to retreat back to the safety of your kingdom. Working an abstracty, rather medieval world and landscape, this little puzzle comes with 80 levels that have been entirely hand-crafted, allowing for you to get to grips with the basics required prior to seeing difficulty levels increase.

Sold as a fun chess puzzle for everyone, this should cater for a range of players, no matter whether you see yourself as a chess Grandmaster or someone totally unaware of how the game of kings plays. Throw in an abstract world, original, super composed music, and youve got a fair old bit in Knights Retreat to enjoy.

Our full review of Knights Retreat on Xbox Series X is in the works and will be coming your way as soon as weve made all the right moves, but in the meantime head on over to the digital store of your choosing remember, the game is available on the Xbox Store for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S but also present on PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC through Steam too. If youre looking to clear your mind of any checkmating worries, this may well do the job.

Game Description:

A chess game without any chess. Rearrange your troops to bring your best Knights back to your Kingdom in an abstract medieval world.

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A chess game without chess - Knight's Retreat is now on Xbox One, Series X|S, PS4 and Switch - TheXboxHub

As Mono and their mysterious companion make their way further into the school, things take a turn from bad to even worse.

They may have slipped away from The Teacher, but theres still more horror lurking in wait.

After youve made your escape from the Teacher in the library and opened the door at the end, youll find yourself in a new corridor. On the right-hand side of the staircase youll find another locked door.

Go upstairs and around to the left theres a weird shadow child to collect.

Around to the right, youll find a pair of chess pieces. Pick up the white disk and you can attach it to the white piece to make a rook. Jump on top of the rook and then onto the door handle in front of you.

Youre now inside a room with a whole chess board. To solve the chess puzzle, come across to the right near the front of the screen and into another part of the room.

Theres another piece on a table here, but first, grab onto the bottom of the screen with the eye painted on it.

Let go and itll reveal the solution: black king in the middle, white king at the bottom, white queen on the left, and the final white piece on the right.

The piece on the table is the white queen. Jump up and take the top off of it, then hop down. Return to the board and place the white queen head somewhere safe.

Now go back out through the door you entered from and get the rook head from the piece there. Place the rook head on the white piece at the bottom of the table and use it to get up to the white king piece.

Put the White King head on the bottom white piece, then remove the rook head and put it on the spare white piece on the right.

Now put the queen head youve saved on the piece on the left and youll hear a click.

Finally, use the rook head, now on the right, to jump up on the table with the bottle.

Jump and grab the lamp here to pull a lever which moves the bookcases in front of you and reveals a key.

Claim your key and head back downstairs to open the door.

On the other side, descend the stairs and pull the trolley from in front of the door. Push your way through, then use the corpse to get up on the freezer and touch the ghostly kid.

Leave the room, then pull the trolley outside over to the high grate before using it as a ladder to advance.

In the next kitchen, hop over the trolley then pick up the ladle to smash the dolls that attack you the timing is very difficult, just keep trying.

Remember you have to press jump while holding it to swing. The dolls stop literally a millimetre outside the arc of your swing, so try and hold off until they leap into your range.

When theyre dead, you have to pick up the doll head you smashed and put it on. Then you can go through the grate on the right without dying.

Walk through the carnage, crouching under the table when your way is blocked.

Finally, squeeze through the crack in the hall at the end of the hall and youre in a new room.

Use the shelves at the top end to climb up then walk along the beam across the light.

Keep climbing and use the rope swing to continue your ascent. Grab the brain jar, then throw it down to the floor. Then jump and grab the hook to get back down to floor level.

Pick up the brain and throw it against the button on the right-hand wall to open to the door.

In the next area with the teacher, crouch through the hole in the wall to get under her desk. Then move to the hiding place in the middle of the room when she walks to the other side of the room.

When she moves again, move under the third desk and follow her through the door.

In the next room, walk straight forward then climb up the drawer handles to get on top of the desks where shes working.

When the teachers back is turned, sneak in front of her, then creep over to the gap between the desks.

Jump over when shes not looking and finally leap over to the hole in the wall when you have a chance.

In the next room, climb up the shelves in front of your and nip into the vent.

On the other side, youll find yourself in another hallway.

Its time for more doll smashing, so pick up the hammer and whack away.

As you walk forward at the start, keep towards the top of the screen and youll trigger a trap that smashes the first doll before you take out the others.

When you turn the corner theres two more.

Then when you turn the corner again, theres two more again, including one that bursts out of a locker behind you.

There are absolutely loads of them throughout this section, and if one of their timing arcs throws you off, its back to square one. But stay patient and focus on each one at a time and youll be able to continue.

Finally, watch out as you reach the bathroom because youll trigger a trap that comes straight out of the door.

In the bathroom, run up and smash the two dolls keep your cool or youll swing impotently at the second.

Next, swing the hammer at the rope holding your friend and shell be dropped to the floor.

Reunited with your pal, open the window on the right-hand wall and leave the building, crossing the plank between the buildings.

In the piano room, turn the crank in the top right corner until it falls, then jump on top of the piano with your mate until you drop to the lower level.

Take a boost from your helper to get to the vent on the left. Here you spot the key to the door on the right with a doll.

Your companion will create a distraction while you sneak around the outside of the doll to a pipe on the near side of the screen you can use to smash it.

Grab the key, then lift the railing to get back into the piano room.

Now use the key on the far door to advance.

In the next room, your friend will turn badass on a doll before you can smash it with a hammer.

Pull out the drawer on the right and use it to scale the cupboard as you head toward the sound of the playing piano.

At the end of the hall, go up the stairs, then get a lift under the white mark on the cupboard from your mate.

Climb up and push down the box to allow her to scale the filing cabinet, then pull open the vent together.

On the other side of the vent, drop down from the books to the floor and sneak across to the right-hand side of the room where theres a crank.

While the teacher is playing, turn the crank. Stop when she does, or youre toast.

With the platform lowered, push the piano stool back across the room again only when shes playing and use it to get back up to your friend and across to the other vent.

Sprint out of there, and finally youll be free of the school.

Run forwards over to the right for a time, then when you reach a dumpster, help your friend push it back away from you towards the top of the screen to close the lid then use it to jump up to the next level.

Keep going right and youll find a ghostly kid next to a paper hat, then a door you can squeeze through.

Inside, youll find an old yellow raincoat. This confirms that the companion helping you throughout the game so far is Six, the protagonist of the first Little Nightmares.

Get a boost from her to open the door then pass through the window on the right in the next room.

In the alleyway, get a boost onto the dumpster and hop the railing.

Push the plank out of the way for Six, then climb the far dumpster and open the grate.

In the courtyard, theres an illuminated window to climb through and you enter the next area.

Continued in the next part!

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Little Nightmares 2 Part 3 | Chess puzzle, Sneaking through the doll's cafeteria - VG247

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Its an entire world of just 64 squares. I feel safe in it. I can control it; I can dominate it and its predictable. In the Netflix miniseries, The Queens Gambit, these are the words that chess prodigy Beth Harmon uses to describe her passion for the game, but I suspect that they also tell us something about the runaway success of this series in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The seven-episode series was viewed worldwide by more than 62 million people in its first month, making it the most-watched limited scripted series on Netflix. The show is visually compelling: 1960s fashion is one aspect of this, but perhaps the key features are the pace and aspirational tone of the narrative a young girl/woman, orphaned and facing coming-of-age issues, while striving for the summit in the male-dominated realm of chess.

The series has also prompted a mini renaissance in the world of chess, with dramatic increases in the sale of chess sets and chess books, and a significant growth in the numbers of new enthusiasts at chess clubs and online chess platforms.

As a chess player I enjoyed the series and appreciate the effort that went into the depiction of top-class over-the-board chess. The series is a landmark in onscreen chess, but as a Cold War period piece set in an age when global politics resembled a chess game the gilded image it presents is somewhat removed from our current harsh reality, and contemporary high-level chess. This, no doubt, is a significant part of the appeal.

As a sociologist I am drawn to particular aspects of the shows reception: enthusiasm within chess circles; speculation on the possibility of a Netflix Effect on the chess gender gap; and the manner in which the series draws on the history of prodigious talent in chess. I am particularly interested in a beguiling theme in art, literature and science that is also very much a feature of the world of chess: the myth of the lone genius. In fact, it is fair to say that chess-themed writing has been a powerful medium for this myth, and the Netflix series is the latest contribution to an established genre.

In Episode 2 the school librarian hands Beth a biography of a grandmaster (the former World Champion, Jos Capablanca). What is a grandmaster? Beth asks, to which the librarian replies, A genius player. This is a tale of genius: Beth Harmon progresses almost effortlessly to the top echelons of chess, despite a substance abuse problem. The early episodes suggest a natural talent for chess visualisation, that is somehow enhanced by the tranquiliser medication she is compelled to take. This aspect of the show has been described as a dangerous and flawed representation of the link between drugs and genius.

Beths character exemplifies the most common contemporary understanding of genius as an innate intellectual or creative power of an exceptional or exalted type, such as is attributed to those people considered greatest in any area of art, science, etc. (Oxford English Dictionary).

The word genius derives from Latin, where it originally meant guardian spirit. The contemporary association with an individual was a product of the Renaissance, where it emerged in tandem with the notions of individual creativity and originality. Painting cannot be taught to those not endowed by nature, claimed Leonardo da Vinci, and this idea reverberated in the realms of literature and science.

The association with elite individual performance developed during the 18th century, notably in Germany, by means of a sharp contrast with talent. Talent tends to be associated with general ability, which most people have, and which can be nurtured. Genius tends to signify a much more exclusive and innate creative ability and the label is typically applied retrospectively to top achievers. Hence, Salieri is talented, but Mozart is a genius.

But ask people to list 10 geniuses and the problematic history of the word becomes apparent: the word connotes primarily white male achievers in Europe and North America. Through its association with talent (originally denoting a form of money), genius entered the realm of post-Enlightenment science as a supposedly hard or measurable entity. Francis Galtons 1869 work on Hereditary Genius was particularly influential, notably in the US, where as educational anthropologist Ray McDermott observes genius became tied to theories of individual differences, IQ scores, school policy, and eugenics.

Given its pan-European traditional status and its deep heritage in the four major modern languages of print French, English, German and Russian chess has been a powerful vehicle for ideas about genius. Chess historian David Shenk notes how the chess genius myth has been a common feature in biographies of chess legends over the years.

Two US players exemplify this trend: Paul Morphy, the mid-nineteenth century unofficial world champion; and Bobby Fischer, the only American to win the World Championship (in 1972, he is the main inspiration for Walter Teviss 1983 novel, on which the series is based). Shenk argues that Fischer, was far from a chess genius out of the box. After toying with the game for a year, he attended a simultaneous display in 1951, at age seven, and lost very quickly to an expert player. Afterward, Fischer joined a club and studied with ferocity. Six years and thousands of chess hours later, he had a spectacular breakthrough at age thirteen and was pronounced a boy wonder.

A grandmaster is not a genius. Grandmaster is a title or a status marker, rather like professor or CEO. The difference is that there are no 13-year-old professors or CEOs. Chess is a highly formalised field of human endeavour, which increasingly produces prodigious young talent. The legacy of child prodigies is one reason why chess is so strongly associated with genius.

Nevertheless, recent patterns associated with grandmaster prodigy undermine the notion of innate genius. High-level chess performance is produced in a dynamic and changing global chess environment or field. Here I use the word field in a particular manner, drawing on the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Fields are networks or configurations of objective relations between positions, and the global chess field falls clearly within the highly structured, stratified and monetised subdomain of games that we associate with the term sport.

The modern field of chess emerged after 1950, when nominal rankings or titles (eg, grandmaster, international master) were officially recognised by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). After 1970 these titles were further specified when FIDE adopted a statistical model of chess performance the Elo rating system. This system was first introduced in the US in 1960, forming the basis of a more stable assessment of title strength and, consequently, a more reliable gauge of prodigy.

In 1950 the youngest grandmaster was David Bronstein, aged 26. Boris Spassky, at 18, became the first teenage grandmaster in 1955 and three years later, Bobby Fischer set a new record of 15 years and six months. Fischers relatively brief career was a game changer for chess: his rapid ascent, obsessive work-ethic, and McEnroe-esque antics established him as the first chess professional in the Anglo-American sport tradition where chess has struggled to achieve recognition.

Fischers age record endured until the dawn of the internet age, when in 1991 one Judit Polgr became the youngest grandmaster, aged 15 years and four months. Polgr, the youngest of three famous Hungarian chess-playing sisters, rose to No 8 in the world and is the only woman ever to rank within the elite 2,700+ band of super grandmasters.

The Queens Gambit has provoked a debate on gender inequality in world chess (see links at end). There are currently no women among the 2,700+ super GMs and just 37 of the more than 1,700 GMs are women (excluding woman grandmasters as the WGM is a distinct, but lower, title). While participation rates are often cited as the key factor in 2020, women constituted 15% of FIDE rated players, up from 6% in 2001 this reduces the problem to numbers, thereby discounting the role of sexist attitudes and a history of institutional discrimination.

Lszl Polgr, an educational psychologist and father of the Polgr sisters, believed that geniuses are made, not born. Intense training and participation in the boys section of junior competitions turned all three of the sisters into child prodigies. In 1986 Susan Polgr became the first woman to qualify for the Mens World Championship, and soon after this FIDE mens events were reclassified as open. In 1991, first Susan and then Judit became the first women to break chesss glass ceiling: the grandmaster title earned through open tournament play (three GM norms and 2,500+ rating).

Fischer once boasted that he would give any woman knight odds. Comments like this and the idea that men are hardwired to play better chess are still commonplace and the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen, has acknowledged the need for a change in culture. At a public lecture, presented in Stellenbosch in January 2020, super GM Levon Aronion questioned whether chess culture can be considered toxic.

The problem is also institutional: men predominate as administrators and coaches, and FIDE channels female talent in the pursuit of lower-rated womens titles, eg, Woman International Master (WIM), Woman Grandmaster (WGM) and Womens World Chess Champion. The chess worlds well-documented grandmaster experiment has shown that women who circumvent this channel can rise to the top.

Lszl Polgr, an educational psychologist and father of the Polgr sisters, believed that geniuses are made, not born. Intense training and participation in the boys section of junior competitions turned all three of the sisters into child prodigies. In 1986 Susan Polgr became the first woman to qualify for the Mens World Championship, and soon after this FIDE mens events were reclassified as open. In 1991, first Susan and then Judit became the first women to break chesss glass ceiling: the grandmaster title earned through open tournament play (three GM norms and 2,500+ rating).

In the post-1990 age of the world wide web, the record for the youngest grandmaster has been broken six times and the current holder is Sergey Karjakin (Ukrainian), who qualified for the title at the age of 12 years, seven months. Of the 38 players who obtained the grandmaster title before their 15th birthday, all but five of them were born after 1990. And all but one (Hou Yifan, from China) are men.

Former world champion Garry Kasparov (who became a GM at 17), explains this trend as follows: Todays teens, and increasingly pre-teens, can accelerate this process by plugging into a digitised archive of chess information and making full use of the superiority of the young mind to retain it all. In the pre-computer era, teenage grandmasters were rarities and almost always destined to play for the world championship.

This pattern of prodigy raises questions about how chess is positioned as a sport, using conventional sporting age and gender categories. For example, the South African schools field is fragmented into distinct events based on the official FIDE categories for age (Under eight, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18) and gender (Open and Girls).

Chess has always straddled the Cartesian mind-body dualism that underpins modern sport, but post-1990 digitalisation has created a whole new ballgame: mobile phones provide access to super-strong chess algorithms and the internet has fostered new online fields of competitive chess for both humans and machines. The pandemic has accelerated this trend rather dramatically: as most conventional sports were suspended, chess players migrated to a host of new online platform-based events.

It is difficult to believe that the post-1990 surge in ranks of male prodigies is the product of innate ability. A far better explanation seems to be the patriarchal traditions of major chess countries and the changing nature of the global chess field. While tournament chess is a semi-open field, it functions quintessentially as a male sporting code, mimicking the practices of more established sports. This trend is complicated, but in many ways reinforced, by digitalisation and the pivot to online platforms (and notably the gaming platform Twitch).

This pattern of prodigy is, therefore, likely to prevail until such time as a critical mass of women players, coaches and administrators is established and until the global field is restructured.

The Queens Gambit weaves together chess fact and fiction using a particular narrative structure. Because Beth Harmon is the fictional equivalent of Bobby Fischer a Cold War warrior beating the Russians at their own game Fischer is never mentioned. While all of Beths opponents are fictional, several famous pre-1968 chess players enter into the verbal narrative (notably the nineteenth century genius Paul Morphy and Boris Spassky, Fischers 1972 World Championship opponent and presumably the inspiration for the agreeable Borgov).

Rather interestingly, only one real grandmaster is depicted in the series, and she provides an important foil for the character of Beth Harmon. In the final episode, as Beth takes her place at the prestigious Russian invitational tournament, we get a brief glimpse of a young woman in the audience. A commentator identifies her as Nona Gaprindashvili with a remark that she is the female world champion and has never faced men.

Gaprindashvili was the first woman ever to be awarded the FIDE grandmaster title. Now almost 80, she understandably felt insulted by this misleading description fictional genius dismisses historically situated talent. The implication of this comment is nevertheless clear: Beth has sidestepped the womens channel.

Will there be a Netflix Effect on the chess gender gap? Time will tell. Certainly, The Queens Gambit has put the spotlight on gender in chess and has generated massive new interest around the planet. This interest has, however, been channelled through the well-worn trope of chess genius. A tale of genius set in the 1960s makes for riveting entertainment and a welcome diversion from the harsh realities of a pandemic but it does not reflect key aspects of prodigy and performance in the internet age of chess.

Beth Harmon may be a woman, but her onscreen trajectory invokes the genius-mystique of Morphy and Fischer far more than the field-challenging experiences of Gaprindashvili and the Polgrs.

More on The Queens Gambit

Dr Lloyd B Hill is with the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University.

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The Queens Gambit and the myth of the chess genius - Daily Maverick