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THE sport of chess has benefitted from the immense traction festered up by the hit Netflix series, The Queen’s Gambit, through its use of seamless computer-generated imagery (CGI) in its presentation of a game that has long been deemed boring and uneventful.
Evidently, it is the presence of a female protagonist as the world champion that takes the cake ─ based on a recent media article, which posed the question: ‘why has there never been a female chess world champion’.
As the series did showcase a presumably female protagonist taking the chess world by storm, the question did pique our curiosity and we decided to find out why this is so.
The Vibes spoke to the Malaysian Chess Federation (MCF) and discovered, to our surprise, that The Queen’s Gambit ─ a show that deals with female-empowered growth, strength and wits ─ is basically a fantastical depiction of a chess-based Wonder Woman.
MCF general secretary, Mr. Najib Abdul Wahab, noted that female chess players tend to be timid in nature; the best way for them to improve is to play and train with the boys.
Now, this may be contrary to what was displayed in The Queen’s Gambit, which showcased an Amazonian attitude in young Beth Harmon, who remained persistent in her attack even after Mr. Shaibel had told her to back down.
However, hear us out for a second.
Although both depictions begin on opposite ends ─ fantasy displays a boldness while reality is viewed as timid ─ both are disadvantaged in their premise because the real adversary in this scenario is men.
As depicted in the 2017 film of the same name, Wonder Woman superheroine, Diana Prince, had lived her entire life with women right up until Steve Trevor entered the picture.
Her headstrong, fist-first approach had always worked among her warrior-based Amazonian peers but did not benefit her for the most part when she stepped into the early 20th-century world of men.
She had to learn to switch up her strategy before she was able to defeat her arch-enemy, Aries, the god of war.
As female chess players are viewed as being far more timid than men at the game of chess, training and playing against female-only adversaries will not give them a foothold on to a world-level pedestal dominated by men.
“We find that girls with brothers or males in the house, who share their passion for chess, tend to play and train better,” says Najib.
The reason being that girls can adapt accordingly to men, who tend to be more forward and aggressive in the way they think and play chess if they are exposed to them from the start.
In both instances, exposure to these distinct approaches inculcates greater skill, ability and performance in a player of either sex, yet the existence of one does not mean the extinction of the other ─ both skills come in handy when the need arises.
Just as Diana needed to learn when to throw her punches at Aries, she also needed to know when to pull back and play defence.
Likewise, for our female chess players.
Although playing in a defensive manner may be part of their nature, and playing a more attacking game can be learnt from their male counterparts, they still need to be able to marry the two.
It takes a certain finesse to be able to glide your chess pieces around the board, knowing as and when to attack and defend, and to do it all, at the right time ─ for a woman, such as Beth Harmon, to accomplish that makes the icing on the cake that much sweeter. ─ The Vibes, 23 January, 2021
