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The REAL opening in the Queen's Gambit
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The REAL opening in the Queen's Gambit

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IM Grecescu
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There's no doubt about it, everyone fell in love with Beth Harmon. The Queen’s Gambit has managed to bring chess to the front page, a great thing for our community.

But like any other topic that rolls and grows, the series is turned upside down by the media until an intrigue is found. Or a seed of scandal, as some would say. This time, the broader the subject, the older it is: equality between women and men.

It all started long before Netflix and social media, when the avalanche was first launched in the world of chess, in 1963, by the famous Bobby Fischer:

"They're terrible chess players... I guess they're just not so smart... I don't think they should mess into intellectual affairs, they should keep strictly to the home"

Of course, this was happening at a time when this was, unfortunately, the general perception of the role of women in society. This does not excuse the attitude of the former world champion, nor should we confuse the genius he showed in front of the chessboard with the person in everyday life.

Time passed and another famous chess player tried to approach the subject from a different perspective, but with the same message a little more beautifully packaged. To be precise, it is the article published in NewInChess by the British GM Nigel Short, entitled "Vive la diference", a text that caused many waves in 2015. His entire thesis focused on the idea that "men and women have different brains ". The fact that Amanda Ross, a journalist from The Telegraph who also ran Casual Chess, fought her perceptions did not help the former world title challenger at all. The Guardian, The Independent, London Evening Standard and the Brisbane Times were chasing him. Nigel's defenders tried to come up with concrete data and presented the results of a 2013 University of Pennsylvania study in Philadelphia that looked at the differences in neural connections between women and men.

https://twitter.com/CasualChess/status/589218491523276800?s=20

Back in the present, we just found out that the producers of the Game of Thrones series were the ones who contacted Garry Kasparov to set up a meeting with the director of The Queen’s Gambit series, in order to establish some sort of collaboration. After the big launch,  the press wanted to talk with Garry Kasparov. One of the interviews he accepted was on CNN with Judith Polgar. The surprising move came, instead, from the show's producer, who reminded him of a statement he gave to Playboy in 1989!

“Well, in the past, I have said that there is real chess and women’s chess. Some people don’t like to hear this, but chess does not fit women properly. It’s a fight, you know? A big fight. It’s not for women. Sorry. She’s helpless if she has men’s opposition. I think this is very simple logic. It’s the logic of a fighter, a professional fighter. Women are weaker fighters.”

Although he doesn't like to admit when he's wrong and he's a proud guy, Garry took a step back and admitted that a lot has changed in the meantime. He also mentioned that at that time Judith Polgar was not in FIDE Top 10 either. And like that, he came out well from a complicated position, in which he could only be put by an outside chess journalist.

As you can see, things have evolved, and to be politically correct today is sometimes almost impossible. Even one of the first sentences that is learned in primary school “Ana has apples!”, can be considered offensive by quince growers. We have a very fine and often interpretable barrier when it comes to being correct or being politically correct. However, the man who brought peace was Magnus Carlsen. The world champion stated for The Guardian:

“Chess societies have not been very kind to women and girls over the years. Certainly, there needs to be a bit of a change in culture."

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We are heading in the right direction, but in order to have a perfect equality, a solution should be found as well for the way the competitions are organized. We currently have two categories of tournaments:

  • Open section- both women and men can participate
  • Women section - only women can participate

Should men feel disadvantaged? 😊

This is the REAL OPENING, the openness to equality and a world in which we can all do anything, without being limited by the gender written on our ID cards.

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