History Series / TheQueensGambit

* ToBeAMaster: Beth pretty much decides to be the World Champion the moment she hears that it exists. [[spoiler: She succeeds in the finale.]]

* TruthInTelevision: Some may find the "[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything passion for chess = addiction]]" theme a bit weird or heavy-handed, but it's a very common thing for any professional chess player to hear that you can't really succeed in the world of chess unless you pretty much ''devote your entire life to it''. The chess and addiction comparisons suddenly make more sense. Contrary to the casual board game reputation it typically has, chess is very much an intense sport that requires utterly obsessive dedication if you're playing at a professional level. This is well-reflected in the chess scenes and the players themselves.

* SamusIsAGirl: In the opening scene, Beth glances at a dark-haired figure sleeping in her hotel bed before departing. When we [[HowWeGotHere catch back up]] with this scene, [[OnceMoreWithClarity we find out]] that it's [[spoiler:Cleo]]. It's left unclear whether [[spoiler: Cleo just crashed in Beth's room after a night of drinking, or if they hooked up]]. There's a tension between the two of them that could definitely be read as same-sex attraction, but [[AmbiguouslyBi it's left ambiguous.]]

-->'''Mr. Fergus''': [[Theatre/KingLear Go thou farther off.]] Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.\\
'''Beth''': ''looks at him quizzically ''\\
'''Mr. Fergus''': Get lost!

* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: Beth is in the back of a crowded elevator when Russian champion Bogrov and his entourage enter. They discuss her flaws both professional (her AttackAttackAttack style which makes her vulnerable to counterattacks) and personal (her drinking problem), while Beth hears everything. Then Bogrov turns in the elevator and catches sight of her just before they all get off.

* ViewersAreGeniuses: To the extent that the show expects you to understand chess, as beyond young Beth's explanation of the moves of the pieces, virtually nothing about the actual playing of the game is explained.

-->'''Mr. Fergus''': [[Theatre/KingLear Go thou farther off.]]\\
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.\\

** People smoking indoors (even on airplanes) and around children.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/LittleManTate'', also written by Scott Frank, and was also about a child prodigy who has a close relationship with their mother (in this case, adopted mother).

The show also stars Creator/MosesIngram as Jolene, a fellow orphan; Christiane Seidel as Helen Deardorff, the head of the Methuen Home for Girls; Rebecca Root as Miss Lonsdale; Chloe Pirrie as Alice Harmon, Beth's deceased mother; Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Townes, a fellow chess player; Creator/ThomasBrodieSangster as Benny Watts, a former child prodigy, US chess champion, and fellow competitor; along with Annabeth Kelly and Isla Johnston as five-year-old and nine-year-old Beth, respectively.

* HollywoodNerd: An interesting example in that several characters tend to clean up their presentation and become more attractive as they get older, over the course of the series. All of the national- and world-level players avert this entirely, wearing very smart suits, or in the case of Benny Watts, southern-style contemporary cowboy gear. TruthInTelevision in that real-life professional chess players are very well-dressed and cleanly presented. Benny even rudely lampshades this in a conversation with a more stereotypically-nerdy college student, saying that when people think of chess, they tend to think of "people who look like you."

The show also stars Moses Ingram as Jolene, a fellow orphan; Christiane Seidel as Helen Deardorff, the head of the Methuen Home for Girls; Rebecca Root as Miss Lonsdale; Chloe Pirrie as Alice Harmon, Beth's deceased mother; Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Townes, a fellow chess player; Creator/ThomasBrodieSangster as Benny Watts, a former child prodigy, US chess champion, and fellow competitor; along with Annabeth Kelly and Isla Johnston as five-year-old and nine-year-old Beth, respectively.

* GeniusBonus: If you know chess, you can really appreciate the winning move by Beth in her game with Luchenko, one of the few times you can really get a clear look at the board on pause. Her bishop endangers his queen, with which he MUST continue protecting his pawn at f3; otherwise, Beth takes it with her own queen for a checkmate. There are just two spaces, e2 and e4, to which he can move his queen, and she'll move her other rook to e5, forcing him to trade his queen for a rook. He resigns because the deficit is too great; she'll relentlessly clear away pieces until she trades a pawn for another queen, then checkmate.

* SmokingHotSex: When Beth and Harry start making out, the scene cuts to Beth lighting a cigarette in bed afterward.

* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Beth is a Performer, having [[BrilliantButLazy a lot of natural talent but disliking studying chess techniques]] because she prefers to analyze real games. Surprisingly, the narrative doesn't favor her, with criticism from Harry (a Technician who works hard and studies chess moves to improve) and her losses against Benny and Borgov forcing her to re-evaluate her style.

* UnderestimatingBadassery: Beth is underestimated more than once throughout the series, most notably by Harry Beltik, who shows up late to their match and clearly doesn't expect a challenge, despite her undefeated status. His experiences with Beth humble him significantly over the course of the series. At a later match, the announcer notes that her opponent probably didn't spend much time preparing because Beth didn't register as an important player by his standards.

* TheSixties: The bulk of the show takes place in the 60s, after Beth becomes a teenager. The decades fashion and music are shown changing from episode to episode.

** We only see Beth play each tournament opponent once, and she never draws with anyone, implying that most chess tournaments have a single-elimination format where rounds are decided by a victory in one game. The only real exception is when Beth is acknowledged to only need a draw to defeat Benny in their tournament. In reality, there are a number of formats for chess tournaments, and most grandmaster games end in draws.
** In the final match with Borgov [[spoiler:he makes what real-life World Champion Magnus Carlsen describes as a huge mistake. When Borgov calls to adjourn the match for the day, Beth has put him in a positon (threat of queen capture) where he has only one viable move to play. Adjourning then rather than on his turn before or after the forced move of the queen greatly simplifies Beth's preparation for the next day. Borgov compounds this by playing a relatively poor move in response to Beth's prepared response, when he had all night to work on it. Together, this is a lack of basic game strategy from the best player in the world in a high-stakes match, though it may be intended to show how much she'd rattled him.]]

* BookEnds: In the first episode, when Mr. Shaibel starts teaching Beth how to play chess, he always begins with, "Let's play." By the end of the finale, when Beth sits down to play chess in the park with an old Russian man, she says "Let's play" but in Russian.

** She also wears it to confront Mr. Wheatly. It goes to show that despite a sometimes awkward relationship, Beth remembers her adoptive mother warmly – and looked to her for comfort.

* ChildProdigy: Beth is obviously one, but there are others. She plays a Russian child prodigy at a tournament and defeats him , then talks to him about drive-in movies. Borgov was also this, having played his first game at age four, and Benny was ''eight'' when he forced a draw against the number two ranked player in the world.

** There's also the fact that at Beth's orphanage, all the girls are given a mandatory daily tranquilizer "to even their temperaments". It's a major plot point when the government makes the practice illegal, and all the addicted orphans are now forced to [[GoingColdTurkey go Cold Turkey]] with no notice.

* DramaticShattering: The first episode ends with nine-year-old Beth dropping the giant jar of green pills she stole on the floor as she hallucinates and falls off the stool and the glass jar shatters.

* HowWeGotHere: The first episode begins with Beth in a hotel in Paris being woken up after a drunken night. After getting cleaned up, she rushes down to a room full of photographers and a waiting game of chess. The rest of the show shows how she got to that point, and what follows.

** "Exchanges," where an "exchange" is the more polite term used for "capture" of one piece by another; though in this case, it's when players exchange the same piece as a way to prevent each other from gaining an advantage.
** "Doubled Pawns," [[TitleDrop mentioned in the episode]] but never fully explained, refers to two pawns of the same color in the same file, normally considered a weak situation since a pawn can only move directly forward unless capturing.
** "Fork," refers to a situation where one attacking piece simultaneously threatens two of the opponent's pieces.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: The series has received a lot of praise for making chess - not a classic spectator sport - seem fascinating.
* MundaneLuxury: When Beth arrives at her new adoptive parents' house, Alma takes her upstairs to show her her room. Having lived the last several years of her life in a communal dormitory - and before that, a tiny trailer she shared with her birth mother - Beth is amazed to have a private room all to herself.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Beth has been modeled very much over Bobby Fischer, American chess world champion.