The Real-Life Inspiration Behind “The Queen’s Gambit”
The marvelous yet mysterious life of one of chess history’s most iconic characters
*WARNING: Spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t watched The Queen’s Gambit*
Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit has recently taken the world by storm. Based on the 1983 Walter Tevis novel of the same name, the show tells the story of Beth Harmon, a child prodigy in the 60s that quickly ascends through the ranks of professional chess with her unrivaled memorization and visualization abilities. The story also follows her trauma from orphanhood and her loneliness from not just being a genius, but a genius woman. When chess nerds watch the show, they’re likely to quickly realize that Beth is quite similar to another real-life character. A person whose life story was similarly surrounded by admiration as much as it was marred by infamy: Bobby Fischer.
Early Life
Bobby was born Robert James Fischer in 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, to his Swiss-American mother Regina and his German father Gerhardt. Regina met Gerhardt while she was studying medicine in Moscow, although they had separated by the time she immigrated to the United States (US) to escape the war. Regina eventually moved to Brooklyn with her son and Fischer’s older sister, Joan, and raised them as a single mother.
Joan was actually the first person to teach Fischer chess at the young age of six, but it didn’t take long for the child prodigy to display his talents. By age eight he was already taking lessons at the Brooklyn and Hawthorn Chess Clubs, and by age 12 he had graduated to playing masters in the larger Manhattan and Marshall Chess Clubs. At 13, he would go on to win the 1956 US Junior Chess Championships, becoming the youngest to ever do so. 1956 was also the year Fischer won a game against International Master Donald Bryne, dubbed “The Game of the Century” for the brilliant plays that young Fischer made against a formidable opponent at the time (the game is studied to this day). Just a year later, Fischer entered and won his first United States Chess Championships, edging out the competition with eight wins and five draws, while simultaneously becoming International Master himself.
Road to Grandmaster and World Champion
Fischer’s real aspiration was to play the Russians, who had dominated the world of chess for more than four decades as world champions in the 60s. Regina didn’t have enough funds for airfare but was able to secure round-trip tickets to Moscow through a game show, where Fischer played against some Soviet Grandmasters. He was then invited to the 1958 Interzonal in Yugoslavia, where he finished in the top six of the tournament, qualifying for the Candidates Tournament. This achievement qualified him to be a Grandmaster at 15, which, again, was a historical record until Judit Polgar (arguably one of the best female chess players of all time¹) broke it in 1991.
¹“Best Female Player” really doesn’t do Judit Polgar justice. She’s beaten eleven current or former world chess champions at either classical or rapid chess, including Magnus Carlsen, Viswanathan Anand, and Garry Kasparov.
Fischer would go on to see further success in world-class tournaments, eventually winning the 1962 Interzonal and becoming the first non-Soviet player to do so. In 1963–64 Fischer won two tournaments with perfect scores. The first was the New York State Championships with a 7/7 (seven wins out of seven games), and the second was the 1964 US Chess Championships where he finished with an 11/11 score, the only perfect score in the tournament’s history. He had a semi-retirement in the late 60s, sporadically playing tournament chess, while also writing My 60 Memorable Games, which would go on to become a chess “bible,” an essential work still studied intensively in contemporary times.
In 1970, Fischer came back with a fury, blazing a path to World Champion. He first won the Interzonal with a seven-game winning streak, which led to the Candidates Tournament again. Here, he defeated Soviet Grandmaster Mark Taimanov 6–0 in the quarterfinals, which already shocked members of the chess world. However, what came as an even greater shock was when he did the same to Danish Grandmaster Brent Larsen in the semi-finals. Even though he ended up losing his second game against former World Champion Tigran Petrosian in the finals, his 20 game winning streak against the best players of his time is a feat some still consider unrivaled today.
“The Match of the Century”
Fischer’s accomplishments lead him to the World Chess Championships in 1972, held in Reykjavik, Iceland, from July to September. He was to play against Boris Spassky, the defending World Champion. The match was also seen as an important political proxy match between the United States and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. As such, this match became the most televised and reported on chess match of the era.
Fischer actually had a rocky start, losing the first two matches in somewhat erratic fashions: the first with a risky end-game move and the second with a forfeit over game conditions. However, from the third game onwards, Fischer found his footing again and went on to win or draw most of the 19 games that followed. Fischer finally won the match with a score of 12 ½ to 8 ½, becoming the first and ever only US World Chess Champion (Beth-Borgov game, anyone?).
Spiral Into Seclusion and Infamy
Unfortunately, not all tales end happily. In 1975, Fischer was supposed to defend his World Champion title against emerging challenger Anatoly Karpov, but after failed term negotiations, he declined to play which forfeited his title to Karpov. For 17 years afterward, Fischer did not play a single public chess match and became a recluse.
In 1992, however, Fischer came out of hiding to play Spassky in an unofficial rematch, winning $5 million while also defying US economic sanctions against Yugoslavia. The Fischer of the 90s was still a strong player in his own right, but many chess analysts considered his style to be antiquated and supposed that he probably wouldn’t have beaten the World Champion at the time, Garry Kasparov.
Fischer’s psyche became increasingly questionable as he got older, as first made apparent by several public anti-semitic comments despite his own Jewish identity through his mother. After the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers, Fischer also publicly applauded the act of terrorism and condemned the United States for imperialist actions around the world. Fischer then lived in Japan for a while until he was detained by authorities in 2004 on the behest of the American government. Fortunately for Fischer, his application for asylum in Iceland was granted, where he lived in seclusion until his death in 2008.
Legacy
“The precision and energy that [Fischer] played with is just unmatched in the history of chess.” — Magnus Carlsen
Despite the confusing and unfortunate later half of his life, Bobby Fischer is still revered as one of the best (if not the best) chess players of all time. His games and strategies are studied by chess disciples to this day, and his name has become the epitome of chess talent. It’s not hard to imagine that Tevis based a large part of Beth Harmon’s character on Fischer’s story. Beth’s early talents, undying support from her mother, spiral into solitude, and the hallmark game against the Soviets all mirror Fischer’s life. In fact, the show pays homage to Fischer when Beth’s adopted mother Alma mistakenly calls Benny Watts, another US chess prodigy in the show, “Bobby” (it could be argued that Benny is a better analog for Fischer, but I think Beth’s characteristics are more similar overall). While Beth’s story seems to end on a more positive note, the journeys of the two chess prodigies are undoubtedly connected.
References
“Bobby Fischer | Top Chess Players.” n.d. Chess.Com. Accessed January 4, 2021. https://www.chess.com/players/bobby-fischer.
Chun, Rene. 2002. “Bobby Fischer’s Pathetic Endgame.” The Atlantic. December 1, 2002. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/12/bobby-fischer-s-pathetic-endgame/302634/.
CNN, Sheena McKenzie, for. n.d. “Chess Star Magnus Carlsen: Bobby Fischer My Dream Rival.” CNN. Accessed January 6, 2021. https://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/16/sport/magnus-carlsen-chess-world-number-one/index.html.
Weber, Bruce. 2008. “Bobby Fischer, Chess Master, Dies at 64 (Published 2008).” The New York Times, January 18, 2008, sec. Obituaries. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/obituaries/18cnd-fischer.html.
