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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe forgotten female chess star who beat men 90 years before 'Queen's Gambit'
Vera Menchik astonished the chess world by taking down high-level male opponents in the 1920s and 30sThese are boom times for chess.
Boards are sold out. Bookstores cant keep how-tos on the shelves.
The reason: Beth Harmon, a Kentucky-orphan-turned-chess-prodigy who in the 1950s and 60s dominated the typically male-dominated game, beating one grandmaster after another.
Actually, Harmon does not exist. She is the fictional star of The Queens Gambit, the hit Netflix series based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis that has chess aficionados recalling, in Chess.coms words, The real-life Beth Harmon?.
Her name was Vera Menchik.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/11/28/vera-menchik-chess-queens-gambit-beth-harmon/
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The forgotten female chess star who beat men 90 years before 'Queen's Gambit' (Original Post)
Zorro
Nov 2020
OP
LizBeth
(9,952 posts)1. Good series, excellent acting, gonna watch again, today.... Thanks for info.
lastlib
(23,197 posts)2. She was a very impressive talent.
Last edited Sat Nov 28, 2020, 04:35 PM - Edit history (1)
I've played through a few of her games--she really put the "hyper" in "hypermodern." She defeated one future world champion, Max Euwe, four years before he won the crown.
I would love to watch this series, but unfortunately, out here in the boonies, I don't have good access to Netflix.
malaise
(268,858 posts)3. Great movie
Glad I watched it
abqtommy
(14,118 posts)4. Thank you for allowing me to say her name...