Last year one of the couple of break out hits from Netflix was The Queen’s Gambit.

It tells the story of Beth Harmon during the 1950’s and 1960’s, and her struggle with drugs and alcohol to become a chess master.

Apparently the seven episode series is based on a novel of the same name. I’ve never read it naturally.

But this incredibly well told story about a flawed chess protege caught the imagination of the world.

It made chess the hip game to be seen playing. Chess set sales went up. And I’m assuming as did the download of chess apps.

I have to admit at the time even I was tempted to get into the game and all the hype.

What stopped me at the time is that chess is what we gamers call a “lifestyle game”. Well it is if you want to progress and get to a reasonable standard.

Usually a “lifestyle game” is a game that you not only play a lot of, but when you are not playing it, you spend a lot of time talking about, reading, researching, working on tactics, etc for the game. An example would Magic the Gathering (MtG). Chess easily fits into this for many.

At the time of Queen’s Gambit being dropped on Netflix and almost getting caught u- in the wave of excitement to play the game of chess. The one thing that stopped me was the knowledge that there is only really room for one “lifestyle game” in a persons life. And I already had one in my life, MtG (although later this year that may be challenged – but more of that later if and when it happens).

But before Christmas I gave in and bought a cheap travel chess set (less than a tenner – just) so that I could try running a game or two over on the Fenland Gamers discord server in an attempt to try and increase engagement over there. The games of Mastermind that I had been running had petered out, with just one participant taking part.

It would be me against the clubs hive mind!

I hadn’t played chess for decades. Potentially the last time being my teenage years. Even then it was very casual, I knew the basics, and there was no way I could have been described as anything but a novice (and that might be giving myself too much credit for my ability or lack of).

I found out how chess notation worked. Refreshed my failing memory on how castling worked. And relearnt what en passant was.

We ended up having two games of chess using the discord server over the Christmas and New Year period. Which ended up with them being me playing Jonathan. For the record I won both of them. I wouldn’t say our games were amazing, we made lots of tactical errors I’m sure. But we had fun.

I did get a couple of kindle books on chess opening moves (kindle unlimited was useful for once) that I need to spend time reading. Jonathan got his hands on a chess computer (which considering all things like apps, are surprisingly expensive). And we have both downloaded the chess.com app (I need to start using this).

I recorded all the moves from the two games in the iOS notepad app, plus added them to the comments in the bgstats app for the two games.

So as you can see even these casual game or two I started dipping my toes into those deep murky waters of what makes chess a “lifestyle game”.

Guess what? Jonathan and I haven’t played since!

When we do it’s Jonathan’s turn to be white and to go first.