[ExI] Queen's Gambit

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge via extropy-chat
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 8:19 AM
To: ExI Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com>
Subject: [ExI] Queen's Gambit


>...While not science fiction, enough people on this list have discussed chess in the past (Spike?) that I think that the series "Queen's Gambit" on Netflix would appeal to them. I think Spike would really enjoy the chess games and exposition while also being mortified by the recurrent themes of addiction and drug abuse. All in all, I think that Anna Taylor Joy is amazing (like a female Johnny Depp) at playing Elizabeth Harmon, a fictional genius who grows up in an orphanage before developing a drug addiction and embarking on a quest to defeat grandmasters in the male-dominated world of chess. Here is one of my favorite lines from the show to demonstrate the quality of the writing:

>..."Chess isn’t always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful. It was the board I noticed first. It’s an entire world of just 64 squares. I feel safe in it. I can control it. I can dominate it. And it’s predictable, so if I get hurt, I only have myself to blame."

Stuart LaForge


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 Thanks Stuart!

Ja, that does sound interesting.  The premise is a bit far fetched perhaps, but fiction is sometimes that way, and besides, Anya Taylor-Joy is smoking hot, with smoke and hot left over after it burns away the implausibility of tranquilizers helping chess players.
  
The top players are known to take performance enhancers, but none of them are tranquilizers.  That would be what you don't want.  If you could somehow get some of that into your opponent perhaps that would be the trick, but they would feel the dart going in, surely against the rules, never work.

>..."Chess isn’t always competitive. Chess can also be beautiful..."

Whaaaat?  Competition isn't beautiful now?  Competition breeds excellence!  Of course it is beautiful.  Chess tournaments have beauty prizes for the most brilliant game.  This prize is often as coveted as the trophy, for the trophy is packed away in the closet and forgotten, but a beautiful attack lives on forever.  This sentiment was expressed so well by Ivan Sokolov, who was beating the hell outta the world champion, who hatched a beautifully sneaky desperate counter-attack, which succeeded.  Sokolov comment is one every serious tournament player can relate to: "...eef I do not keel self tonight, I veel leef thousant years..."  

spike