Queen's Gambit Chess References


Queen's Gambit is the first series I've binge-watched end-to-end in a very long time. Not since Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown have I found a series worth investing so much time into. And it's fitting, considering that although I've been playing chess since my father taught me the game as a kid, and I've dabbled in it off and on ever since, it's the now 9-months long COVID-19 social isolation that pushed me into the next level of obsession with chess. 

What follows is a list of all of the factual chess references I could keep track of while watching this riveting series. I have attempted to omit anything that appeared to me to be fictional references, of which there were many.

Episode 1: Openings

  • Scholar's Mate
  • Sicilian defense 
  • Levenfish variation 
  • Najdorf variation
  • Queen's Gambit 
  • Modern Chess Openings (book)
  • Reti opening 
  • A simultaneous 

Episode 2: Exchanges

  • Backward pawns
  • Forks
  • Knight-rook combination 
  • My Chess Career (Jose Capablanca's autobiography) 
  • Chess Review (magazine)
  • Clocks 
  • Touch move
  • Modern Chess Openings (previously mentioned, but now we see the author's name is Walter Korn, apparently rare and out of print)

Episode 3: Doubled Pawns 

  • Caro-Kann defense 
  • Doubled pawns
  • Mieses-Reshevsky, margate, 1935
  • Ruy Lopez (not really in the chess context, but Townes says it to make her smile during the photo shoot)
  • Marshall (reference to a queen sacrifice ala Paul Morphy) 
  • Slav 

Episode 4: Middle Game 

  • Seal her move (prior to game continuation the next day)
  • Closed Sicilian 
  • Rossolimo 
  • Castle (I missed the earlier reference when a player tells her she should not have castled)

Episode 5: Fork 

  • JR Capablanca - My Chess Career 
  • Capablanca 
  • Bogoljubov
  • Grunfeld 
  • Smyslov versus Botvinnik 
  • Mikenas 
  • Philidor 
  • Diderot 
  • Koltanowski 
  • Steinitz 
  • Paul Morphy and the Golden Age of Chess by William Ewart Napier 
  • Speed chess 
  • Ruy Lopez (this time in a chess context)
  • Skittles
  • Blitz 
  • Bughouse 

Episode 6: Adjournment

  • Levenfish
  • Schwarz 
  • Hastings Christmas Chess Congress
  • Faliase Hall, White Rock Gardens 
  • Uhlmann 
  • Reinfeld 
  • Queen sacrifices 
  • Reuben Fine's endgame analysis 

Episode 7: End Game 

  • Alekhine 
  • Botvinnik
  • Bronstein
  • English opening 
  • Sicilian, in reverse 
  • Four Knights variation 
  • Queen's Gambit 
  • Queen's Gambit Declined 
  • Albin
  • Adjourn 

What did I miss?

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