I am going to put this in blur, but having finished the book, I think the Netflix show was superior:
Early in the book, Jolene gets horny and tries to get something going with Beth.
Largely, the adoptive parents behave the same.
Cleo does not happen in the book. She just shows up to the game sober, loses, and kicks off the drinking when she gets home. I am not sure she is a Russian plant.
In the series, her destructive drinking is much more pronounced.
In the book, when she hits rock bottom she reaches out to Jolene. About 3 chapters later, Schaibel dies.
Question: How explicit does the show get? Sex scenes, drugs, any tough to watch violence (someone mentioned bullying, so not sure how far it goes), …
My 14yo daughter is the chess champion at her secondary school. She is also growing into a teenager but is barely 14 and there are limits to what I’ll watch with her.
Then again, we watched the first episode and that was ok. It peaked her interest. But I’m not sure what to expect as the main character gets older. Any advice?
No real violence. Lots of drinking and drug use (mostly pills). A couple of sex scenes but no nudity, but it’s clear they’re fucking or have just fucked.
My master friend said that with advent of computers, they no longer allow adjournments. So the slowest game have a much faster time control than back in the old days.
yes, that’s right. No adjournement. But 6 hrs game are possible. 2hrs each player for 40 moves, then 1hr per player after 40 moves. Or sometimes 90 min per player plus 30 sec increment (which adds up).
Adjournemnt is so so. If you had a good team, they did the work, while the GM was sleeping. I think, good riddance. Now it is you against your opponent for 6hrs.
I guessing my take is mine alone, but damn I thought the showed fell apart in the last two episodes. It was an enjoyable ride up until episode 6, but then it felt rushed and uber-cheesy, with Townes showing up in the crowd, and the group phone call, etc. It felt like two different writers wrote the show (one for Ep1-5, one from the Hallmark channel for Ep6-7). I’m pretty disappointed.
I was really with this show through 5 1/2 episodes. It really falls apart when the friend from the orphanage showed up (all but wearing a “Magical Negro” sign over her head) to save her from self-pity…and the show just takes a hard left turn into a Hollywood Schmaltz Fantasyland from that point on. I can only assume that Netflix’s notes came back with “write a seventh episode with a happy ending, please.”
Before that, I was as taken with the sets and costumes and the apparently unsentimental portrayal of the poor orphan girl’s rise as most other people seem to be. But this show just has a multitude of problems that only really reveal themselves on reflection.
Watched 5 episodes, haven’t read the spoilers above. I’m enjoying it so far, but… it’s hard to say why. I feel like after 5 episodes, here is what I know about Beth Harmon: 1) she is good at chess and 2) she has an addiction problem. Of course, I already knew those things after half of the first episode. The performances are good, and the period setting is well done, but the characters don’t seem well developed and other than a handful of plot points, not much seems to happen or change.
Oh, and those plot points are pretty badly telegraphed/foreshadowed. When the mom starts coughing I immediately knew she was gonna die
Okay I’m following you guys but not sure what you wanted to happen. Being the series was limited, not seasonal, how would you have moved things differently? Longer? Not as rosey of an ending?
I think one reason I actually enjoyed it was the quick story arc, wrapped up in a binge day or two at most. And the very basics of the plot had her overcoming difficulties to win, mostly. That’s a horrible summary but let’s go with it.
Truth be told I felt like there was a little too much fluff in the way of that at times. Then again I’d have watched the show if it was deep into the chess part of it, so I’m not a good marker for a better way to give it mass appeal.
Late to the party, but I too found the last episode incongruent. So much so that I paused it after 10 minutes to check if it had a different director. It did not, so now it is my head canon that she died when she hit her head in episode 6 and the rest of the series is a fantasy, like the end of Birdman.
Just finished this last night and loved it. The quality of the period production had a Mad Men vibe and I’m pretty sure the Vegas staircase from Mrs. Maisel had a cameo. I didn’t mind the finale (and rather liked it, actually) but I can understand the criticism there. Her clothes in the last episode were amazing–I suppose she bought them while in Paris, which was a nice touch. That Corvair was also gorgeous.
IMO, it’s not necessarily the no adjournment rule that keeps chess games relatively short today, it’s more that chess masters are much better at determining when a game is going to be a draw, and thus will “settle” games very quickly, if they seem to be going nowhere. Their analysis and knowledge of the game is so much higher these days, that they’re often right.
Although reigning World Champion, Magnus Carlsen - possibly the best player ever (though we’ll see what people says when his career eventually ends) - is renowned for his bulldog-like insistence on playing games which others would consider draws, often creating a winning position after many hours of positional play when the other player is exhausted. I’ve watched many of his matches run to 4+ hours of length. Though sometimes he accepts a draw if it will go to blitz (as against Caruana in the last WC), since he is also the best Rapid and Blitz player in the world.
He was upset in the speed chess semifinals last week, but it was close.
This show has finally given me the push I needed to transition from Tetris to chess. Some of you clearly know a fair bit about the modern chess world. What are some good resources for learning, aside from watching the best on Twitch & such? I’ve already discovered a YouTube channel that analyzes great games, but all of my books are from the 1960s… That’s fine for now, but I expect it will show if I ever go to a tournament.
Stop by the thread and say hello, then join lichess, join the Qt3 team on lichess, lots of other suggestions in the thread. Hit any us up for a casual correspondence game!
