Real vs make-belief

I've come to the end of that Netflix mini-series, The Queen's Gambit; watched all the seven episodes and also come to the conclusion that despite my initial scepticism the show was, after all, very well-made and worth your time to watch. The final episode was especially good, worthy of the cost of subscription to Netflix itself. In fact, I even watched the final 30 minutes twice, fascinated by the tension and quality of the featured game. 

But why should this seventh episode be so good? Firstly, there was the emotional tug that the protagonist had to deal with: the demise of the one man that uncovered her potential and made her dogged ambition possible. Then, as I had mentioned before in another post, chess had become this extension of the Cold War, East-West conflict and the Communism-Democracy ideology; all rolled into one. Those things apart, this was also a mini-series about chess players overcoming their personal internal demons to triumph at the end. After all, doesn't chess mirror life, and life chess?  

In The Queen's Gambit, it was about a fictional American teenage female prodigy beating a fictional Soviet world chess champion in a game that mattered most to her after two previous losses in past years. Nothing like a loss-loss-victory sequence of results to give the show its final feel good stir-up.

That crucial game in the seventh episode had my wife and I -- and she's not a chess player....well, perhaps a very, very rudimentary understanding of the game -- gripped to our seats but as many chess commentators have already revealed, right up till the 37th move the make-belief Elizabeth Harmon-Vasily Borgov game had mirrored the real-life game between Vassily Ivanchuk of Ukraine and Patrick Wolff of the United States, played in 1993 at the Biel Interzonal in Switzerland. By the way, Ivanchuk was a famous ceiling watcher. During his games, he is known to seek answers by staring at the ceiling.

After 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 Nc6 4. Be3 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. d5 Ne7 7. Bxc4 Ng6 8. f3 Bd6 9. Qd2 Bd7 10. Nge2 a6 11. Bb3 b5 12. a4 O-O 13. O-O Qe7 14. Rac1 Nh5 15. g3 h6 16. Bc2 Rab8 17. axb5 axb5 18. Ra1 Ra8 19. Bd3 Bb4 20. Rxa8 Rxa8 21. Qc2 Bc5 22. Nd1 Bd6 23. Nf2 Nhf4 24. Rc1 Qg5 25. Kh1 Qh5 26. Ng1 Nxd3 27. Nxd3 f5 28. Nc5 Bc8 29. Rf1 Ne7 30. Qd3 fxe4 31. fxe4 Qg6 32. Kg2 Kh7 33. Nf3 Ng8 34. Nh4 Qg4 35. Nf5 Nf6 36. h3 Qg6, the following position was reached:

Ivanchuk chose to bolster his knight's position with 37. g4 and the game went on for another 35 moves before both the players agreed to a draw: 37....Bxc5 38. Bxc5 Ra4 39. Rf3 Rc4 40. Be7 Bxf5 41. Rxf5 Rd4 42. Qe3 Rxe4 43. Qf3 Rf4 44. Rxf4 exf4 45. Bxf6 Qxf6 46. Qd3+ Qg6 47. Qe2 c6 48. Kf3 cxd5 49. Kxf4 Qf6+ 50. Kg3 Qd6+ 51. Kf3 b4 52. h4 Qf6+ 53. Kg3 Qd6+ 54. Kf3 Qf6+ 55. Kg3 g6 56. Qe8 Qd6+ 57. Kf3 Kg7 58. g5 hxg5 59. hxg5 d4 60. Qe4 d3 61. Qb7+ Kf8 62. Qc8+ Ke7 63. Qb7+ Ke6 64. Qe4+ Kd7 65. Qb7+ Kd8 66. Qa8+ Kc7 67. Qa7+ Kc8 68. Qa8+ Kc7 69. Qa7+ Kc6 70. Qa6+ Kc5 71. Qxd6+ Kxd6 72. Ke3 Ke5 1/2-1/2

Whereas in the mini-series, the fictional Harmon chose 37. Ne6 and got an immediate advantage after 37....Ra4 38. b3 Rxe4 39. Nxd6 Bxe6 40. dxe6 cxd6 41. e7 d5 42. Bc5 Qe8 43. Qf3 Qc6 44. b4 Qe8 45. Qf5+ Kh8 46. Qxf6 gxf6 47. Rxf6 Qh5 48. Rf8+ Kg7 49. e8=Q Re2+ 50. Kf1 Qxh3+ 51. Kxe2 Qg2+ 52. Rf2 Qe4+ 53. Kd2 1-0

It must be said that The Queen's Gambit had its credentials boosted as the producers had even gotten Bruce Pandolfini and Gary Kasparov as the special consultants for the series. I heard that they had coached and choreographed Anya Taylor-Joy and her co-star, Thomas Brodie-Sangster. And I suppose they must have also come up with the choices of master-level games that appeared throughout the series.

The only exception that I can take in this final episode of the mini-series is that when Borgov requested for an adjournment, it wasn't even the 40th move in the actual Ivanchuk-Wolff game. That was an artistic licence that the producers took, and it had happened in an earlier episode too, but in the context of The Queen's Gambit, I suppose it was needed to justify the storyline. But it won't happen in a real chess tournament back in the 1960s or even until the 1990s. With the advent of computer analysis, adjournments were eliminated from chess games. Back in those days when adjournments were the order of the day, they were time for the seconds to thoroughly analyse the positions overnight while the players slept off their mental exertions. The next morning, their seconds would report their findings -- the best defences and the best attacks -- to the respective players.