Review of the documentary Queen of Chess, Netflix February 2026

Last night I watched the documentary Queen of Chess on Netflix. I had read about it in the news magazine The Week to which I subscribe. I have followed chess from a distance with an affectionate interest kind of like that of an aunt following the exploits of a distance cousin.

When I was a high school English teacher, I sponsored The Chess Club in our high school which was a working class sociodemongraphic in a run down river town. As a new teacher, I was given the lowest classes in terms of behavior and achievement, the students who had failed the 'new' minimum basic skills test, ninth graders (for those who don't know - the worst grade to teach in terms of behavior management). It seemed to me that one of the things my students, mostly boys of about 15 years of age, in the midst of the physical turmoil of adolescence, needed was something to teach strategy, patience, and an eye to a few steps ahead.

I found the boy popularly deemed to be the toughest of the touch, a skageboard hero, six feet tall with a mohawk who had been mostly home-schooled by his mother due to his problems with behavior in school. Bohemians often hit it off with outsiders and the outsider world leaves a little room for art of many kinds, spray paint, comic books, etc. I just had a feeling this boy, very bright, would be intrigued by the game of chess. He was. And because he took an interest, his followers did as well. I bought a dozen cheap sets at the local 5 * 10 store for $2.50 a box and proceeded to teach them the basics. In about one game, they could all beat me. I am not particularly crafty or competitive, and they all had those traits.

We formed a chess club which seemed to confer an extra cache' of glamour on the bad boys. I took them on class trips with field trip money to chess tournements. Sadly, I was not a good enough chess teacher to make it possible for them to win, but I showed them a wider world.

I would have liked to be a better chess player but I lack a most essential ingredient, a trainable memory. My memory works bery well on things it likes, but I cannot force chores on it, they slide right out. At the time, I knew so little about chess, that I didn't know about chess magazines or books but our chess club didn't last long anyhow because we met on lunch hour and the maintenance staff complained about potato chip bags and wrappers in the classroom trash cans. I couldn't do after school because I was a single parent and i had to get home to my little daughter. They closed us down. No matter, I had other programs including an annual trip to the theqter in PHiladelphia where my students got to see the Nutcracker, and an opera.

Back to chess. This was another of the ubiquitous regions entirely dominated by men. At the time of my youth women weren't even permitted to compete in tourements with men should they have so desired. Few women did. The prevailing 'masters' publicly announced on a regular basis that women would never compete in chess with men because we weren't intelligent enough aggressive enough, and we lacked the concentration.

So from a distance, though, I kept my eye on the chess world as indeed most people did in the era in which I grew to adulthood. Everyone knew the names Bobby Fischer and Gary Kasparov and people sat breathlessly awaiting the results of games that pitted Americans against Russians. It was like the space race, a tribal competition of national epic proportions.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered via the review in The Week, that there had been a Chess superstar who had actually been in the top 10 of Grandmasters, and had actually beaten Gary Kasparov! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to see that documentary. It was really well done, too. Judit Polgar, Hungarian, had been trained from early childhood by her father who had the great experimental goal of trying to raise a genious, He was of the nurture rather than nature disposition. He and his wife home-school their three daughters and they had 3 training chess sessions each day. All three young women became successful chess champions, but Judit was MORE! She set her goal on becoming a Grandmaster and beating Gary Kasparov, at the time, the greatest chess master in history. Judit won her way up through the women's tournement heirarchy then the mens. Finally, she came face to face with Kasparov and I will leave that to you to watch in the documentary because it is a subtle and beautiful portrait of two greats coming together in the spirit of championship level sportsmanship.

Some of the male competitors that Judit beat refused to shake her hand after the match, a very surprising thing in that world of extreme honor for rules and correct behavior. To me. her demeanor throughout this journey to greatness was so admirable that it brought tears to my eyes. She met every disappointment and every slight and i nsult with grace and determination. Judit Polgar was the Grandmaster of sportsmanship.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am working on a project for the Haddon Fortnightly and HMHS March Women's History Group Art show. I am doing a group of 15 miniatures of great women often overlooked by history. The theme is "Remember the Ladies" the famous quote from Abigail Adams in Revolutionary America. At first I planned to stick to women of that period, the 1700's but some caaled out to me and I had to move up the centuries and add some of my favorite heroines. Now I am adding Judit Polgar, Happy Trails as we endure the Polar Vortex, the Arctic Blast and the third rider of the frigid apocalypse, the Bomb Cyclone! wrightj45@yahoo.com