‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Turned My Frat Into a Chess Madhouse
The show that made chess cool again.
It all started at a bar. “Connor, we need to start playing chess,” my roommate randomly mentioned to me on that September afternoon. He explained he wanted something new to do since we were tired of consistently playing cards during quarantine. A few moments later, we promptly hopped on Amazon and ordered an $8 board. As for the chess addiction that would soon follow — as they say — the rest is history.
We began playing each other frequently and picking up on certain tricks to develop our individual games. Neither of us really cared who won; we just liked having fun and thinking a little more than our normal routine. It was very innocent and low pressure at the time. Little did we know the looming chess storm that would be The Queen’s Gambit.
The Netflix original series released on October 23rd and has proven to be a successful fan favorite. As of now, it impressively has an 8.7 out of 10 on IMDb and a 99% Rotten Tomatoes rating. It’s also said that The Queen’s Gambit has given chess itself some new traction: eBay records sales of chess sets and accessories have risen nearly 215%, Chess.com has seen a surge of new US daily members from around 6,000 to now 30,000, and the book (which the Netflix series is based on), The Queen’s Gambit…
