‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Made Me Remember Boris, the Best Chess Player I Ever Knew
By: Lance Ulanoff
Tags: Gaming, Culture, Digital Life, Chess, Television

‘The Queen’s Gambit’ Made Me Remember Boris, the Best Chess Player I Ever Knew

Photo: sk/Unsplash

Shock. I was a member of the chess club. I joined when I entered junior high, which may have been the same year my father taught me how to play chess.

I have little to no memory of the matches played during those few years but have vivid memories of my battles with Boris.

Boris was ruthless, maniacal even. He’d taunt me and laugh at my paltry moves, and while he sometimes commended my smart ones, he’d often feign confidence when I caught him off guard, telling me, “I expected that.” Boris kept this green player honest, too, telling me when I’d made an “illegal move.” Boris was also lazy, telling me where to move his pieces on the board. Basically, playing Boris meant twice the work.

Boris was also a computer.

42 years ago, my father brought home Boris, one of the first consumer chess games. Billed as the first “Talking Chess Computer,” Boris was developed by Chafitz and named for the Russian Chess Grandmaster Boris Spassky.

“Talking” was a generous term. Instead of an anthropomorphic robot, Boris was housed in a cigar box-sized cherry wood chest. Inside, there were the small wooden chess pieces in a cubby on the right, a folding chess board stuffed into the lid, and, on the left, the computer. With its red LED single-line, ticker-style display that Boris “spoke” through and 16-character alphanumeric keyboard, Boris resembled an elegant calculator. The keypad, however, was crucial. It was the only way to enter your moves into the computer based on the board grid. Similarly, Boris’ moves were spit out as coordinates for the board.

And, so it went, back and forth with a computer that, while depending on the difficulty setting, could take quite a while to parse out every possible move, was almost unbeatable. Certainly, it was a challenge for a 13-year-old amateur.

Decades later, I traveled with a much smaller and significantly smarter computer chess game from Kasparov (developed with the help of Chess Champ Gary Kasparov). Instead of typing in coordinates, the board let me press my pieces into a pressure-sensitive board, and I moved the computer’s pieces based on the coordinates indicated by two red LED lights. I used to take it on flights until one day someone knocked the board out of my hands, sending tiny pieces flying all over the cabin. I never recovered them all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Boris lately as I watch the utterly enthralling The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, a limited series that traces the fictional career of a female chess prodigy and sometimes alcoholic and drug addict Beth Harmon played with credible intensity by Anya Taylor-Joy. Even my wife, who’s never played the game, finds the timed and speed chess matches exciting.

For me, it sparked a renewed interest in the game and its machinations. I resumed playing 10-minute matches on Chess.com’s app. It has a chat feature that, if you leave it open, allows your opponent to comment on your moves. After someone cursed at me, I turned that feature off. Boris would never curse at me. These days I split my time between playing real humans and the less salty computer, which is basically my iPhone.

I’m not a particularly good player. My rating is, well, it’s not good enough to print here. I just don’t see the board the way I did when I was younger, but I am enjoying the thrill of a game.

From what I hear, The Queen’s Gambit is inspiring others to rejoin or pick up the game. I hope they’re not too upset that it’s not as exciting as Beth Harmon’s career.

As for my first chess computer, I played Boris obsessively for months, literally jumping for joy when I finally beat it and “Congratulations” ticked across the red display. That victory only made me want to play more and I did until the day Boris started speaking in gibberish. I killed the poor thing, but not my lifelong love of the game.