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Netflix mini-series The Queen’s Gambit could encourage more girls to play, but there are obstacles facing any potential new talent
Beth Harmon, heroine of Netflix’s miniseries The Queen’s Gambit, has joined Magnus Carlsen and easy access to internet games as a trigger for the unlikely chess boom of 2020.
The worldwide interest is probably the greatest that the game has experienced since Bobby Fischer famously defeated Boris Spassky at Reykjavik in 1972, incidentally providing an inspiration for Walter Tevis to write his 1983 novel in which Harmon is the central character.