The Queen’s Gambit
This drama tells the growth experience of a female genius from an orphan to a world chess champion. This is a major female lead drama, and it is also a ‘cool drama’. Unlike other dramas of this type, it focuses on the flaw of genius rather than focusing on the coolness and superiority of being a genius.
The story begins with Beth’s mother taking her to commit suicide. However, Beth is miraculously unscathed and she becomes an orphan. After being sent to the orphanage, Beth is obsessed with a sort of green tranquilliser. Under the influence of the drug, Beth can have hallucinations. She has always had the best academic performance in the orphanage. Only those green pills can make her come through nights. By chance, Beth meets Mr. Shaibel, a worker of the orphanage in the basement. Or to be more precise, she knows about chess. Mr. Shaibel and his chess deeply attracts Beth. Beth masters the principles and movements of these pieces just through observing silently. Mr. Shaibel is shocked by her talent and teaches her to get started. Soon after, she makes rapid progress and defeats Mr. Shaibel. However, what Mr. Shaibel teaches her the most important stuff is not the chess game, but learning to admit defeat.
Beth dislikes losing at all. Fortunately, she has never lost again since learning. The teacher of the high school chess club, invited by Mr. Shaibel, goes to the basement to meet Beth and battles with her. As a result, Beth wins without effort. Then, Beth fights with the teacher and Shaibel simultaneously. Without doubt, they both lose. Afterwards, Beth battles with 12 high school students at the same time, 12 people lose. Beth wins very simply. That year, Beth is only 9 years old.
However, it happens to be that year when Beth is already addicted to those green pills. If she doesn’t take pills, she will go crazy. Though, the United States launches a new law that no longer allows minors to take such doses of tranquillisers. After Beth is taken off the medicine, she is extremely upset every day. Eventually, she takes a risk and goes to pharmacy and steals the medicine. She gulps the pills and then faints in front of teachers and other children.
At the age of 15, Beth is adopted. She is incompatible with her classmates in a regular high school. Everything she thinks in her mind is still playing chess. She writes to Mr. Shaibel in order to borrow 5 dollars, which is used to sign up a formal chess game. Then she defeats all masters, including the state champion with 1800+ points and she wins 100 dollars as a reward. Subsequently, her adoptive father runs away from home, leaving her wife and Beth. Beth and her adoptive mother depend on each other. Her adoptive mother starts taking her around to participate in competitions and she never loses one game.
Until she ties with American champion Benny and becomes the American double champion. To Beth, being equal to others is just like losing. What is even more frightening is that she meets Borgov from the Soviet Union. At that time, it is the time when the Soviets dominate the chess world and Borgov has been dominating the chess world for twenty or thirty years. In front of Borgov, Beth is defeated thoroughly. But even worse, when she returns to the hotel and wants to tell her adoptive mother, she finds her adoptive mother has passed away, which symbolises that no matter how talented people are, they are destined to be defeated by life.
After losing her adoptive mother, Beth is devastated. Although everyone around her tells her that chess is not the whole life, she has nothing but chess. She becomes more obsessed with playing chess than before, as well as starts taking drugs and drinking alcohol. She is a mess of decadence.
It is not until one year later in the Paris match that she again faces Borgov. This time is even worse. She has a hangover the night before the game and almost misses the game. However, it is a mess again. In her mind, she is a machine that only wins chess. But if it is unable to win, what is the meaning of life? With the help of her boyfriend, she suddenly discovers that there are many senior chess players in history eventually go crazy. She gradually begins to suspect that being mad is her fate.
At this time, I think the most brilliant reversal of the series has come. From the beginning, Beth’s talent is dependent on tranquillisers. If she does not take tranquillisers for a day, she cannot stand it. Thus, when she falls, she quickly becomes addicted to alcohol and pills. The chessboard is actually the key for her to escape from life. Only by taking pills, she is able to be concentrate on chess so that survive life. She never dares to face her devastating fate as well as this cruel world. She is afraid of thinking of her mother who commits suicide and her childhood experiences.
But in the end, she finally summons the courage to go to Moscow and challenges the Soviet masters again. She returns to the orphanage and finds that Mr. Shaibel has been paying attention to her silently for many years like paying attention to his own daughter. Her best friend in orphanage Jolene, takes out the tuition fees that she has saved for a long time to go to college and supports Beth’s travel cost. Her ex-boyfriends also provide her with technical support. She is no longer a genius fighting alone. Moreover, she no longer needs the help of drugs, but with her own strength, she can predict the chess game on the ceiling.
Eventually, she defeats all the Soviet masters and steps on Borgov’s palace with a knight, becoming a new generation of the world champion.
There are many details in the series that are worth mentioning.
- Beth knows that she will play chess with the Soviets in the future, so she learns Russian in advance.
- In the lift, she meets Borgov for the first time who is followed by two bodyguards. Those two bodyguards are preventing Borgov from defecting to the United States! It is the era of the Cold War.
- In high school, Margaret Neil laughs at Beth’s clothes, which Beth buys them at Ben’s sale loft. After years, Margaret buys clothes for her daughter at this loft.
- Beth and another genius boy named Georgi Girev, he is really talented at playing chess. After the game with Beth, he says he wants to become the world champion in three years. However, he finally becomes a piano player.
- Harry’s teeth
At the end of the series, there is another old man playing chess with Beth. This is to react to the beginning of the story. The story begins with Beth playing chess with an old man (Mr. Shaibel), and ending with playing chess with another old man. It brings a nice conclusion to Beth’s story.