The Queen's Gambit

by Walter Tevis

  In a game between Petrosian and someone named Benkowitz, in the semifinals, Beth saw a bad decision of Petrosian’s. He started an attack with pawns but shouldn’t have. There was a commentary on the game by an American grandmaster, who thought the pawn moves were good, but Beth saw deeper than that. How could Petrosian have misjudged it? Why hadn’t the American seen the weakness? They must have spent a long time studying it, since the magazine said the game took five hours.

  ***

  Margaret only slipped the shaft into her gym lock and didn’t twist the dial afterward. They were in shower stalls side by side now, and Beth could see Margaret’s sizable breasts, like solid cones. Beth’s chest was still like a boy’s and her pubic hair had just started coming in. Margaret ignored Beth and hummed while she soaped herself. Beth stepped out and wrapped herself in a towel. Still wet, she went back into the locker room. There was no one there.

  Beth dried her hands quickly and very quietly slipped the shaft out of Margaret’s lock, muffling it in her towel. Her hair dripped on her hands, but that didn’t matter; there was water all over from the boys’ gym. Beth slipped off the lock and opened the locker door, slowly so it wouldn’t squeak. Her heart was thumping like some kind of little animal in her chest.

  It was a fine brown purse of real leather. Beth dried her hands again and lifted it down from the shelf, listening carefully. There were giggles and shouts from the girls in the shower, but nothing else. She had made a point of being the first in, to get the stall nearest the door, and she had left quickly. No one else would be through yet. She opened the purse.

  There were colored postcards and a new-looking lipstick and a tortoise-shell comb and an elegant linen handkerchief. Beth pushed through these with her right hand. At the bottom, in a little silver money clip, were bills. She pulled them out. Two fives. She hesitated for a moment and then took them both, together with the clip. She put the purse back and replaced the lock.

  She had left her own door shut but unlocked. She opened it now and slid the clipped fives into her Algebra book. Then she locked her door, went back to the shower and stayed there washing herself until all the other girls had left.

  When everyone else was gone, Beth was still getting dressed. Margaret had not opened her purse. Beth sighed deeply, like Mrs. Wheatley. Her heart was still pounding. She got the money clip out of her algebra book and pushed it under the locker Margaret had used. It might have just fallen there from Margaret’s purse, and anybody could have taken the money. She folded the bills and put them in her shoe. Then she took her own blue plastic purse from the shelf, opened it and reached into the little pocket that held the mirror. She took out two green pills, put them in her mouth, went to the washstand and swallowed them down with a paper cup of water.

  Supper that night was spaghetti and meatballs from a can, with Jell-O for dessert. While Beth was doing the dishes and Mrs. Wheatley was in the living room turning the volume up on the TV, Mrs. Wheatley suddenly said, “Oh, I forgot.”

  Beth went on scrubbing the spaghetti pan and in a minute Mrs. Wheatley appeared with an envelope in her hand. “This came for you,” she said and went back to the Huntley-Brinkley Report.

  It was a smudged envelope addressed in pencil. She dried her hands and opened it; there were five one-dollar bills inside and no message. She stood at the sink for a long time, holding the bills in her hand.

  ***

  The green pills were four dollars for a bottle of fifty. The label read: “Three refills.” Beth paid with four one-dollar bills. She walked home briskly and put the prescription slip back in Mrs. Wheatley’s desk.

  FOUR

  At the entrance to the gym a desk had been set up, and two men in white shirts were sitting behind it. Behind them were rows of long tables with green-and-white chessboards. The room was full of people talking and a few playing; most of them were young men or boys. Beth saw one woman and no colored people. Pinned to the desk near the man on the left was a sign that read ENTRY FEES HERE. Beth walked up to him with her five dollars.

  “Do you have a clock?” the man asked.

  “No.”

  “We have a clock-sharing system,” he said. “If your opponent doesn’t have one, come back to the desk. Play starts in twenty minutes. What’s your rating?”

  “I don’t have a rating.”

  “Have you ever played in a tournament before?”

  “No.”

  The man pointed to Beth’s money. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “We don’t have a woman’s section,” he said.

  She just stared at him.

  “I’ll put you in Beginners,” he said.

  “No,” Beth said, “I’m not a beginner.”

  The other young man had been watching them. “If you’re an unrated player, you go in Beginners with the people under sixteen hundred,” he said.

  Beth had paid little attention to ratings in Chess Review, but she knew that masters had at least 2200. “What’s the prize for Beginners?” she said.

  “Twenty.”

  “What about the other section?”

  “First prize in the Open is one hundred.”

  “Is it against any rule for me to be in the Open?”

  He shook his head. “Not a rule, exactly, but—”

  “Then put me in it.” Beth held out the bills.

  The man shrugged and gave Beth a card to fill out. “There are three guys out there with ratings over eighteen hundred. Beltik may show up, and he’s the state champion. They’ll eat you alive.”

  She took a ball-point pen and began filling in the card with her name and address. Where a blank said “Rating” she put a large zero. She handed the card back.

  They started twenty minutes late. It took them a while to get the pairings posted. When they were putting the names on the board Beth asked the man next to her if it was done at random. “Not at all,” he said. “They arrange it by ratings on the first round. After that, winners play winners, and losers, losers.”

  When her card was finally put up it said “Harmon—Unr—Black.” It was put under one that said “Packer—Unr—White.” The two cards were by the number Twenty-seven. They turned out to be the last two.

  She walked over to Board Twenty-seven and seated herself at the black pieces. She was at the last board on the farthest table.

  Sitting next to her was a woman of about thirty. After a minute, two more women came walking over. One was about twenty, and the other was Beth’s opponent—a tall, heavy high school girl. Beth looked over the expanse of tables, where players were getting settled or, already seated, were beginning games; all of them were male, mostly young. There were four female players at the tournament and they were all clumped together at the far end, playing against one another.

  Beth’s opponent sat down with some awkwardness, put her two-faced chess clock at the side of the board and held out a hand. “I’m Annette Packer,” she said.

  Her hand felt large and moist in Beth’s. “I’m Beth Harmon,” she said. “I don’t understand about chess clocks.”

  Annette seemed relieved to have something to explain. “The clock face nearest you measures your playing time. Each player has ninety minutes. After you move, you press the button on top, and it stops your clock and starts your opponent’s. There are little red flags over the number twelve on each clock face; yours will fall down when the ninety minutes are up. If it does that, you’ve lost.” Beth nodded. It seemed like a lot of time to her; she had never put more than twenty minutes into a chess game. There was a ruled sheet of paper by each player, for recording moves.

  “You can start my clock now,” Annette said.

  “Why do they put all the girls together?” Beth said.

  Annette raised her eyebrows. “They’re not supposed to. But if you win, they move you up.”

  Beth reached out and pressed down the button and Annette’s clock began ticking. Annette took her king’s pawn somewhat nervously
and moved it to king four. “Oh,” she said, “it’s touch move, you know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t touch a piece unless you’re going to move it. If you touch it, you have to move it somewhere.”

  “Okay,” Beth said. “Don’t you push your button now?”

  “Sorry,” Annette said and pressed her button. Beth’s clock started ticking. She reached out firmly and moved her queen bishop’s pawn to its fourth square. The Sicilian Defense. She pressed the button and then put her elbows on the table, on each side of the board, like the Russians in the photographs.

  She began attacking on the eighth move. On the tenth she had one of Annette’s bishops, and on the seventeenth her queen. Annette had not even castled yet. She reached out and laid her king on its side when Beth took her queen. “That was quick,” she said. She sounded relieved to have lost. Beth looked at the clock faces. Annette had used thirty minutes, and Beth seven. Waiting for Annette to move had been the only problem.

  The next round would not be until eleven. Beth had recorded the game with Annette on her score sheet, circled her own name at the top as winner; she went now to the front desk and put the sheet into the basket with the sign reading WINNERS. It was the first one there. A young man who looked like a college student came up as she was walking away and put his sheet in. Beth had already noticed that most of the people here weren’t good-looking. A lot of them had greasy hair and bad complexion; some were fat and nervous-looking. But this one was tall and angular and relaxed, and his face was open and handsome. He nodded amiably at Beth, acknowledging her as another fast player, and she nodded back.

  She began walking around the room, quietly, looking at some of the games being played. Another couple finished theirs, and the winner went up front to turn in the record. She did not see any positions that looked interesting. On Board Number Seven, near the front of the room, Black had a chance to win a rook by a two-move combination, and she waited for him to move the necessary bishop. But when the time came he simply exchanged pawns in the center. He had not seen the combination.

  The tables began with Board Number Three rather than One. She looked around the room, at the rows of heads bowed over the boards, at the Beginners Section far across the gym. Players were getting up from their chairs as games ended. At the far side of the room was a doorway she hadn’t noticed before. Above it was a cardboard sign saying “Top Boards.” Beth walked over.

  It was a smaller room, not much bigger than Mrs. Wheatley’s living room. There were two separate tables and a game was going on at each. The tables sat in the center of the floor and a black velvet rope on wooden staunchions kept the watchers from getting too close to the players. There were four or five people silently watching the games, most of them clustered around Board Number One, on her left. The tall, good-looking player was one of them.

  At Board One two men were sitting in what seemed to be utter concentration. The clock between them was different from the others Beth had seen; it was bigger and sturdier. One man was fat and balding with a darkness to his features like the Russians in the pictures, and he wore a dark suit like the Russians’. The other was much younger and wore a gray sweater over a white shirt. He unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and pulled up the sleeves to his elbows, one arm at a time, not taking his eyes from the board. Something in Beth’s stomach thrilled. This was the real thing. She held her breath and studied the position on the board. It took a few moments to penetrate it; it was balanced and difficult, like some of the championship games in Chess Review. She knew it was Black’s move because the indicator on his clock was moving, and just as she saw that knight to bishop five was what was called for, the older man reached out and moved his knight to bishop five.

  The good-looking man was leaning against the wall now. Beth went over to him and whispered, “Who are they?”

  “Beltik and Cullen. Beltik’s the State Champion.”

  “Which is which?” Beth said.

  The tall man held a finger to his lips. Then he said softly, “Beltik’s the young one.”

  That was a surprise. The Kentucky State Champion looked to be about the age of Fergussen. “Is he a grandmaster?”

  “He’s working on it. He’s been a master for years.”

  “Oh,” Beth said.

  “It takes time. You have to play grandmasters.”

  “How much time?” Beth said. A man in front of them by the velvet ropes turned and stared at her angrily. The tall man shook his head, pursing his lips for silence. Beth turned back to the ropes and watched the game. Other people came in and the room began to fill up. Beth held her place at the front.

  There was a great deal of tension in the middle of the board. Beth studied it for several minutes trying to decide what she would do if it were her move; but she wasn’t certain. It was Cullen’s move. She waited for what seemed an awfully long time. He sat there with his forehead supported by clenched fists, knees together under the table, motionless. Beltik leaned back in his chair and yawned, looking amusedly at Cullen’s bald head in front of him. Beth could see that his teeth were bad, with dark stains and several empty spaces, and that his neck wasn’t properly shaved.

  Finally Cullen moved. He traded knights in the center. There were several fast moves and the tension lessened, with each player relinquishing a knight and a bishop in trades. When his move came again he looked up at Beltik and said, “Draw?”

  “Hell, no.” Beltik said. He studied the board impatiently, screwed up his face in a way that looked funny, smacked a fist into a palm, and moved his rook down to the seventh rank. Beth liked the move, and she liked the way Beltik picked up his pieces firmly and set them down with a tiny graceful flourish.

  In five more moves Cullen resigned. He was down by two pawns, his remaining bishop was locked into the back rank, and the time on his clock was almost up. He toppled his king with a kind of elegant disdain, reached over and gave a hasty handshake to Beltik, stood up and stepped over the rope, brushing past Beth, and left the room. Beltik stood and stretched. Beth looked at him standing over the board with the toppled king, and something in her swelled with excitement. She felt goose bumps on her arms and legs.

  Beth’s next game was with a small and bristly man named Cooke; his rating was 1520. She printed it in at the top of the score sheet by Board Thirteen: “Harmon—Unr: Cooke–1520.” It was her turn to play white. She moved pawn to queen four and pressed Cooke’s clock, and he moved instantly with pawn to queen four. He seemed wound up very tight and his eyes kept glancing around the room. He couldn’t sit still in his chair.

  Beth played fast too, picking up some of his impatience. In five minutes they had both developed their pieces, and Cooke started an attack on her queenside. She decided to ignore it and advanced a knight. He hastily pushed a pawn up, and she saw with surprise that she could not take the pawn without risking a nasty double attack. She hesitated. Cooke was pretty good. The 1500 rating must mean something, after all. He was better than Mr. Shaibel or Mr. Ganz, and he looked a little scary with his impatience. She slid her rook to the bishop’s home square, putting it below the oncoming pawn.

  Cooke surprised her. He picked up his queen bishop and took one of the pawns next to her king with it, checking her and sacrificing the piece. She stared at the board, suddenly unsure for a moment. What was he up to? Then she saw it. If she took, he checked again with a knight and picked off a bishop. It would win him the pawn and bring her king out. Her stomach was tight for a moment; she did not like being surprised. It took her a minute to see what to do. She moved the king over but did not take the bishop.

  Cooke brought the knight down anyway. Beth traded the pawns over on the other side and opened the file for her rook. Cooke kept nagging her king with complications. She could see now that there was really no danger yet if she didn’t let it bluff her. She brought the rook out, and then doubled up with her queen. She liked that arrangement; it looked to her imagination like two cannons, lined up and ready to fire.r />
  In three moves she was able to fire them. Cooke seemed obsessed with the maneuvers he was setting up against her king and blind to what Beth was really doing. His moves were interesting, but she saw they had no solidity because he wasn’t taking in the whole board. If she had been playing only to avoid checkmate, he would have had her by the fourth move after his first check with the bishop. But she nailed him on the third. She felt the blood rushing into her face as she saw the way to fire her rook. She took her queen and brought it all the way to the last rank, offering it to the black rook that sat back there, not yet moved. Cooke stopped his squirming for a moment and looked at her face. She looked back at him. Then he studied the position, and studied it. Finally he reached out and took her queen with his rook.

  Something in Beth wanted to jump and shout. But she held herself back, reached out, pushed her bishop over one square and quietly said, “Check.” Cooke started to move his king and stopped. Suddenly he saw what was going to happen: he was going to lose his queen and that rook he had just captured with, too. He looked at her. She sat there impassively. Cooke turned his attention to the board and studied it for several minutes, squirming in his seat and scowling. Then he looked back to Beth and said, “Draw?”

  Beth shook her head.

  Cooke scowled again. “You got me. I resign.” He stood up and held out his hand. “I didn’t see that coming at all.” His smile was surprisingly warm.

  “Thanks,” Beth said, shaking his hand.

  They broke for lunch and Beth got a sandwich and milk at a drugstore down the block from the high school; she ate it alone at the counter and left.

  Her third game was with an older man in a sleeveless sweater. His name was Kaplan and his rating was 1694. She played Black, used the Nimzo-Indian defense, and beat him in thirty-four moves. She might have done it quicker, but he was skillful at defending—even though with White a player should be on the attack. By the time he resigned she had his king exposed and a bishop about to be captured, and she had two passed pawns. He looked dazed. Some other players had gathered around to watch.