What If You Were Beth Harmon?
⚠️ Disclaimer ⚠️
The games featured in this blog are not the original ones from the Queen’s Gambit series. They have been selected, modified, or replaced by the author for illustrative or narrative purposes. Some plot elements have also been changed, omitted, or reimagined to fit the style of this adaptation.
Additionally, this is a non-linear blog: it is not meant to be read by scrolling from top to bottom. Instead, you follow your own path by clicking the blue hyperlinks throughout the text. Your choices shape the direction of the story.
Not the one everyone claps for. At least not yet. Before fame, before Moscow, before Borgov, there was a friendly janitor, loneliness, and curiosity. You didn't ask for anything of that, but somehow chess found you. Your journey begins today, but you are just 9 years old. You start in an orphanage. There is no tutorial.
White to move.
PART I - THE BASEMENT
You are nine. The other girls in the orphanage won't stop laughing, shouting, and running. That is not for you. You nod when the teacher asks you to get another eraser from the basement.
You find him there. Mr. Shaibel. Bent over a wooden board that’s carved like a battlefield. The way he moves the pieces, something interesting is happening: like he knows what’s coming before it happens. It’s not just a game. It is something bigger.
"Do you want to learn?"
Fear. Shame. Guilt?
You don't even know what to say. The board is quiet.
He waits. No pressure. No kindness either. Just the weight of that question hanging in the air like smoke.
What do you do?
➤ You sit and start asking questions.
This is too strange. You climb back up the stairs and never come back. You never touch a chessboard again.
Your story ends here.
➤ Restart and make a bolder choice
You say nothing. You just wait for him to say something.
He slides his pieces to their starting squares and waits for you to do the same. You mimic his position and he calmly explains the rules to you of a game called chess.
"Now, let's play a game."
1... 2... 3... 4. You have lost. In four moves.
"It is called the scholar's mate".
That felt humiliating.
You ask him to play again. He declines. You leave till the next day.
You sit and start asking questions.
"What is this? What is the aim?"
He doesn't answer. He asks you to put the pieces in the starting squares, so you do it. After explaining to you the rules of a game called chess, you play a game. Four moves. That is all he needs to beat you. The scholar's mate, that is how he calls it. He refuses to play a second game, so you decide to come back the next day.
You return. And the day after that.
He always plays white, and he always beats you. Your passion for the game starts to grow, and each day you learn something new. Suddenly, you are able to replicate the games above your head at night.
After a few days, the games become longer and longer, as he finds it harder to beat you.
You ask questions. Better ones. Sometimes he answers with a diagram. Sometimes he just points.
One day, he places three books on the table.
"Pick one."
They’re old. The covers cracked and stained. You don’t ask where he got them.
Which book will you choose?
➤ "The Soviet Chess Primer" by Ilya Maizelis
➤ “My System” by Nimzowitsch
➤ "Logical Chess Move by Move" by Irving Chernev
"The Soviet Chess Primer" by Ilya Maizelis
After devouring the book in a few days, you notice how much your tactical vision has improved. You can now calculate further. You make less impulsive decisions and start noticing more complex plans and ideas.
You understand things like outposts, bad bishops, space advantages, and pawn weaknesses more clearly.
You begin to think in plans, not moves. You use strange ideas, such as leaving your king in the center. Mr. Shaibel is still better, but you know he is impressed.
"Logical Chess Move by Move" by Irving Chernev
You value reason above instinct. Every move must make sense.
You also start narrating your games mentally. It actually helps. You become disciplined early.
You bond quickly with Mr. Shaibel. You start “talking chess” like him. He approves, silently, of course.
Now that you have read some chess, each day you get closer to a win. Finally, you reach this position.
You know you are better here. Your strong bishop on e5 controls key squares. Now, you have to decide how you will win.
Which move will you choose?
➤ Qc5 in order to pin the c3 pawn.
➤ Rxb4. There is a tactic over there.
➤ Bc8. You want to slide it to g4.
You slide your queen to c5. You have bad intentions.
He looks surprised, but understands immediately.
Thanks to the book you read, you have a great positional awareness.
A week later, you are adopted. Not by choice, but it happens. A thin woman in a pillbox hat signs the papers. Her name is Alma Wheatley. Her husband isn’t there. Before leaving, there is something you must do.
You go down to the basement, tell Mr. Shaibel, and he smiles.
"To tell you the truth of it, child, you're astounding."
Mr. Shaibel
That hits hard.
Either way, you go upstairs and they take you to a quiet house with plastic-covered furniture, clinking teacups, and a piano nobody plays. No basement here. But you keep playing on a board Mr. Shaibel gave you, wrapped in old newspaper and string.
At school, you eat alone. At home, you eat in silence. But then, you hear Alma on the phone one night, cigarette in hand:
“They have tournaments, apparently. In town. Chess. I thought maybe she could try one.”
Suddenly, you get excited. When you arrive at the tournament, the organizers try to put you in the unrated section.
"Will I be able to win a prize?"
When you hear the "no", you ask to go to the Open section. They look at each other and laugh, but they agree.
First round.
You’re surrounded by boys. Old men. No one looks like you. No one even sits like you. Your hands stay calm, though your stomach is twisting knots.
“Harmon, Elizabeth?”
“White.”
You sit. You play. You crush.
Second round.
Another man. Another win. He looks confused at the end, like something went wrong in his world.
Third round.
This one is tougher. A college student. He blunders in the opening. You crush him.
Fourth round.
This 1700 Elo player is strong, so it takes a long maneuvering game to beat him. However, you reach this position. How do you end the game?
After that flashy end, people start to talk about you. In the next and last round, you will face Harry Beltik, a strong player who has won other tournaments before.
Fifth round.
Harry Beltik is not like the others.
He’s calm. His posture is perfect. Not cocky, just precise. He’s been here before. Maybe a dozen times. He’s the local champion and you're the girl from nowhere. He plays 1. e4.
What do you do?
➤ Play 1. c5, the Sicilian Defense.
➤ Play 1. c6, the Caro-Kann Defense.
➤ Play 1. e6, the French Defense.
You stand alone by the results board.
5 wins. 0 losses.
$100 check in your hand and something heavier in your chest: recognition.
Alma, your new mother, is delighted.
She starts making plans: Chicago, Cincinnati, Las Vegas.
“You keep winning, I keep booking,” she says. You don’t stop her.
Travel begins!
You play local tournaments. Win all. The rooms grow larger. The clocks get heavier.
Chess is no longer a secret.
One day, you sign for the US Open. You are already 17 years old. You know the strongest players in the US will be there. It will be tough, but surely a great experience. The best player in the US is there, Benny Watts.
You win quite easily in the first rounds. In the last round, you play him: Benny Watts. You know you are the underdog in this match. Most people think he will win, and everyone roots for him.
You open with 1. e4.
"You played well, good game". He seems honest.
After this tough loss, what do you do?
➤ Stand up and leave. Say nothing.
➤ "You were tough. Congrats on your sacrifice."
You leave without saying a word.
Alma, your adoptive mother, is waiting for you in the hotel room. She comforts you and you both stay in the same hotel for some weeks. Tragically, she passes away. The silence in the hotel room is different now. It’s not peace. It’s absence. Without any emotional support, you give up on chess and end up working in a store for the rest of your life.
➤ Restart and make a bolder choice
He is happy with your answer. You become friends and you decide to train together. When you get to the hotel room, your mom comforts you. However, after some weeks, she tragically passed away. The silence in the hotel room is different now. It’s not peace. It’s absence.
Thanks to your kindness to Benny that day, you have a place to stay during those hard days.
You sleep on his couch. It's cold. Narrow. But you're grateful.
Every morning, Benny is already analyzing something by the time you wake up. You play him and his friends every day. At some point, you get better than him. He calls it luck, you call it precision.
And then, it is time. The tournament in Paris.
You and Benny fly to Paris. First time in Europe. Everything smells expensive. A golden hall, chandeliers, smoke in the air.
You win your first game. Second. Third. Fourth.
But then, Vasily Borgov, arguably the best player in the world. You are younger, braver. You have a chance.
You go first, play 1. e4.
You and Benny analyze that game as if your lives depend on it. You see, you had potential winning moves. You are not sad. He is not a machine. This means... You could have beat him.
PART IV - THE FINAL SQUARE
The cold hits first. You arrive in Moscow.
You are older, wiser.
This is the final act: the World Championship. It is time for an American to obtain the title Russians had had for a long time.
Crowds greet you in the tournament hall like you are a legend. However, you feel like you are not one. Yet.
You slowly win the first three rounds. In the fourth one, you are paired against Luchenko, a former World Champion, called the Lion.
He plays 1. d4. He seems calm.
You play a slow, maneuvering game.
Finally, you reach a superior endgame. Can you win it?
What do you do?
➤ f5 to strengthen the center.
➤ R8a7 to protect the f7 pawn.
I may have just played the best chess player of my life.
Luchenko
No one has ever said that to you.
You walk alone through the stone corridors of the tournament hall. Your footsteps bounce off the high walls like soft drumbeats. No mother. No Mr. Shaibel. Just you.
And yet... You don’t feel lonely.
You feel... ready.
The Night Before Borgov.
You stand in front of the window, twelve floors above Moscow.
Snow coils through the orange-lit night like smoke. The tournament hall rests somewhere beyond the rooftops, quiet and waiting. Somewhere in that silence, Borgov is studying you.
The thought doesn’t scare you. Not anymore.
Behind you, Benny is lying on the couch with a chessboard balanced on his chest, half-asleep, mumbling lines from the Sicilian. You smile. Tomorrow is the biggest game of your life. You pull your notebook from your bag. Inside, the pages are filled with annotations, symbols, questions, arrows, memories. And now... How do you prepare for Borgov?
Tomorrow you are white. You spend the night mapping every possibility against d4. You are an e4 player, but you will try to surprise him. You refresh traps in the Exchange Slav, review the Queen's Gambit Declined, until you feel ready.
Your head becomes a machine of preparation, methodical and fast.
You enter the game ready for anything…
Almost anything.
You ignore flashy lines. You pull out an old book and review concepts such as zugzwang, opposition, and triangulation. You watch how endgames unfold and how small mistakes become blunders. It's not glamorous, but it's solid.
You close the books and make two cups of tea. Benny sits up, eyebrows raised.
"Prep time’s over?"
"Not all training is memorization," you say.
You talk. About Fischer, about fear, about why anyone loves this brutal game. The clock ticks, but you feel it less and less.
He studies the board in silence. The tension in the room collapses into quiet as Borgov gently tips his king.
"You are the best I’ve ever faced," he says softly.
You nod, but words don’t come. Not yet. Applause begins. Cameras flash. People rise. You stand, stunned but steady.
Outside, Moscow is cold, but the chill sharpens your senses. You step away from the crowd, the press, the trophies. You wander through streets.
Soon, you find yourself near a park.
A group of old men sits hunched over wooden boards, pieces worn from decades of use. One looks up, grins, and gestures to an empty chair.
You smile.
You sit.
And you play the Queen’s Gambit.
Thank you for reading and stepping into Beth's mind.
I hope you enjoyed navigating her choices, her doubts, her brilliance.
If you liked this interactive story, let me know! Your feedback, ideas, and criticisms are more than welcome. If you want more stories like this or something completely different, I’d love to hear that too.
