The Queen`s Gambit

[James Plaskett]

My wife said that when she saw the ratio of men to women in the chess world it made her wish she had played chess in her youth.
"All these blokes!"
The Queen`s Gambit affected that.
I have never seen this Netflix thingie The Queen`s Gambit. Just a few snippets.
However, just now I logged on to Twitter and found this on the page for The Queen´s Gambit handle -
https://x.com/NetflixTheQG/status/2099005302544777271

It had only been uploaded the day before - September 13 2026.
And it`s not anything at all by way of a difficult problem. Nor even a serious one!
The position stems from a book which a guy approached me with last year at a tournament in IBI and asked me to sign for his son.
It`s by John C. Murray, translated into Spanish, and is entitled
Estrategia De Ajedrez Britanica
Juego como el campeoon ajedrez James Plaskett
It`s got a pic of me from 1983 on the cover.

And the combo (well, just the check, really!) is from my game at an event in Lorca of December 29th 2017.

[Jon Mahony]

I read the novel when I was 16 and I'd been thinking for years, it will make a great film / series Ok through older eyes the story is slightly far fetched. Heath Ledger had secured the rights before he passed and was going to direct and star in it - presumably he would have played Beltik or more likely Benny Watts.

Walter Tevis the author was a hobby Chess player and so didn't know a great deal about the world, but he used to work in a Pool hall and so his other famous works "The Hustler" (which was adapted into the famous Paul Newman film) and "The Colour of Money" (Adapted into the less famous Tom Cruise film - but the book is a lot better) are superior.

[Joey Stewart]

Fun fact about the queen's gambit I discovered recently - heath ledger was a very keen chess player and after playing the joker in the dark Knight was in negotiations to direct his first movie which was going to be an adaptation of the queen's gambit, so if not for his unfortunate demise we would have had the queen's gambit chess boom a full decade earlier!

[JustinHorton]

Fun fact about the queen's gambit I discovered recently - heath ledger was a very keen chess player and after playing the joker in the dark Knight was in negotiations to direct his first movie which was going to be an adaptation of the queen's gambit

I also discovered this recently, by reading the posting directly above yours

Heath Ledger had secured the rights before he passed and was going to direct and star in it

[Geoff Chandler]

HI,

Allen Scott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Sco ... eenwriter) bought the film rights in 1992 and spent years trying to get Hollywood to produce it. He along with Scott Frank are in the Netflix credits as creators and producers.

It was going to be a film with Heath making his debut as a director. He and Allan Scott had Ellen Page lined up to be Beth Harmon but sadly Heath passed away shortly after sending her the script.

Interview with Allen Scott https://www.indiewire.com/features/gene ... 234596551/ He adds that Heath related to Beth, noting that his personal struggles with prescription drugs attracted the actor to Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy with a similar addiction.

The film may have done OK at the box office but not I doubt in the same sphere as the Netflix series, I think covid and lock down played a huge part in it's success. Figures vary but it is claimed Netflix subscriptions went up by 26 million during the first few months of lock down.

chessgames.com did not have Jim's game. I submitted it. https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=3199450