Chess Rating Inaccuracy in The Queen’s Gambit

Rewatching The Queen’s Gambit and have to doubly attest that the portrayal of tournament and world-class chess, the lingo, the players, etc. is spot on. I’m surprised with all that that a consultant did not catch what to, tournament chess players, would be a glaring ratings inaccuracy at a certain stage of Beth Harmon’s career.

Beth is a high school senior and tells the girls at that club meeting: “Now that my rating is up to 1800 …” She was dominating national tournaments by then and was about to win the US Open. She had beaten US National Masters and International Grandmasters.

Her rating at 17 would have been a helluva lot higher than 1800, or Class A. My rating is 1752 and there is no way in hell I could win the US Open or beat a Grandmaster over the board with tournament time controls. Beth by this time, with her accomplishments already, would have to be rated at least 2200-2300, a solid National Master. For the sake of the story, we’ll concede that as a female in the early sixties, she’d not yet had any opportunities for international play to garner any International Master norms.

So as spot on accurate as the series was regarding tournament and professional chess, that was a glaring error as far as her stated rating compared to how strong a player she was portrayed as being. Hell, when she won the Kentucky State Championship at 13–four years prior to her stating her rating was 1800–she would have come out of that with a provisional rating of around 2000-2100 or so, a solid Expert.