The Queen’s Gambit: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Eight-year-old Beth Harmon learns of her mother’s death from a woman with a clipboard. The next day, a picture of her, looking plain and stunned, appears in the local newspaper. Alongside the photo is an article explaining that she was orphaned and left without family when her mother was killed in a car accident. Authorities say she will be well looked after.

Beth soon moves into Methuen Home in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, where she is given a tranquilizer twice a day. She is glad to get the little green pill, which helps keep her calm through the tense hours at the orphanage. A man named Mr. Fergussen gives the children the pills as they line up. It is in this line that she meets Jolene, a tall, 12-year-old Black girl. Jolene asks if Beth is a bastard and if her parents are dead, but Beth doesn’t know what bastard means and she can’t bear to think of her mother as dead. She says nothing.

Beth starts to acclimate to Methuen: the barber cuts her hair into the bangs they all wear. She occasionally hears boys in the Boy’s Ward shouting about “cocksuckers,” which she knows would get the boys’ mouths washed out with soap even though she doesn’t know what the word means. She also notices the janitor, Mr. Shaibel, one day when she goes to the basement to clean the blackboard erasers. There, he is playing on a checkerboard—only the pieces are funny shapes. When he looks up at her, she leaves in silence.

At Methuen, if Beth doesn’t follow the rules—like eating the fish they serve even though it nearly gags her—the staff will tell the director, Mrs. Deardorff. If that happens, Beth won’t be adopted. Some children get adopted quickly—a six-year-old named Alice who came in a month after Beth was adopted after three weeks by a nice-looking couple. Other children have been there a long time and know they will never leave. Beth wonders if this will happen to her.

Gym is unpleasant because Beth is gawky, to the point where she even injures her hand playing volleyball. Jolene is the best player by far, and Jolene shows her how to hold her hands. With Jolene’s guidance, Beth works on it until she gets it right and hitting the ball doesn’t hurt anymore. She doesn’t become good, but she gets to the point where she isn’t afraid of it.

Every Tuesday, the Arithmetic teacher sends Beth to the basement to clean the erasers because Beth is the best student in the class. Though she is afraid of Mr. Shaibel, one day she asks him about the mysterious game he plays. He is gruff and irritated by the interruption, but he tells her that he is playing chess. That Sunday, Beth sneaks out of chapel by pretending to go to the bathroom and watches Mr. Shaibel play for 10 minutes. He doesn’t look at her, but she watches every move, entranced as he stares at the pieces and moves them with great deliberation.

Beth learns to save her tranquilizers until night; they help her sleep. For the first two months, she sleeps very little because of all the other girls sleeping around her, the distant noises that make her tense, and the light shining in when staff members open the door to check on them. Now, she snuggles in bed as her anxiety loosens thanks to the green pills.

One day, Beth asks Mr. Shaibel to teach her to play chess (she has snuck out of chapel again). He says that he doesn’t play strangers. Two days later, Beth returns, saying that she’s not a stranger—she lives there. Mr. Shaibel says girls don’t play chess. At this, Beth starts to point out the way the different pieces move, indicating what she’s already learned. He asks her about the one that looks like a lemon, and she says it moves on the diagonals.

Beth continues to save up pills, keeping the extras in her toothbrush holder. That night, for the first time, she takes three pills. She feels like she has solved some part of her life: she knows how the chess pieces move and capture, and she knows how to make herself feel good with the pills.

The following week, after Arithmetic and with ten minutes before Geography, Mr. Shaibel tells Beth that they can play chess now. Beth protests that she doesn’t have much time, but Mr. Shaibel says they can play now or never. She thinks only a second before grabbing a milk crate and sitting across from him. He beats her in four moves in what she later learns is known as the Scholar’s Mate.

Even with the quick match, Beth is 15 minutes late to Geography. She says that she was in the bathroom, but the teacher asks if any of the other girls saw her there. They only giggle, but he gives Beth five demerits. She’s terrified: with 10 demerits you are whipped with a leather strap. She feels in her breast pocket for that morning’s pill, and she becomes instantly less anxious just knowing it’s there. That night, Beth lies in bed, looking at the ceiling and forcing herself to see the chess board. She imagines the pieces and replays the game she lost. The noises around her fade, and Beth plays happily.

The next Sunday, Beth blocks the Scholar’s Mate. It then takes Mr. Shaibel 14 moves to trap her queen. She ignores the inevitable loss, but when she tries to touch a pawn Mr. Shaibel stops her hand and tells her to resign. At first, she refuses to give up, but he tells her that she has lost and that it’s sportsmanship to resign the game. She becomes furious and starts to insult him, but in response he tells her that they won’t play anymore, and to get out. Beth wishes she were bigger; instead, she gets up and leaves.

The following Tuesday, the door to the basement is locked, and Beth is frustrated. But on Thursday, the door is open, and Mr. Shaibel acts like nothing has happened. They play a game, and Beth is able to get a pawn to the sixth rank. She watches in delight as Mr. Shaibel wastes a move and Beth’s pawn becomes a queen on the next move. He reaches out angrily and topples his king—her first win. It is the most wonderful feeling Beth has ever felt.

Beth starts to miss lunch on Sundays, which gives her three hours with Mr. Shaibel. He teaches her different sequences, like the Sicilian defense; he tells her that the squares have names, though he doesn’t yet explain what they are; and he shows her some basic moves and variations that she picks up quickly. They then play a game in which none of the things that he has just taught her matter. She glares at him, but she is still determined to beat him.

Beth notices that Mr. Shaibel often begins the game by moving the pawn in front of his queen and then the pawn in front of his bishop. She asks if this is a sequence. He says yes: it is the Queen’s Gambit. She’s pleased to have picked up on it, but instead of taking the offered pawn, she leaves it on the board and moves her knight instead—she likes the power of the pieces, their influence over the different rows and diagonals. In 20 moves, she wins both his rooks, and he resigns.

The following Tuesday, the Arithmetic teacher doesn’t let Beth go to the basement, which disappoints her. As the week goes on, she saves pills and plays chess in her mind at night. On Saturday, she takes all six pills that she has saved, thrilled at her loosening anxiety and the “deep chemical happiness.”

On Sunday, Mr. Shaibel asks where Beth was on Tuesday, and she explains that they wouldn’t let her out of class. Mr. Shaibel explains that she can move first today, and that they will trade off playing the white pieces—the way it is meant to be played. Beth opens with the king’s pawn and quickly recognizes that Mr. Shaibel is playing with the Levenfish Variation. She moves in, neutralizing his attack and bringing out her own, winning in under thirty moves. The checkmate takes him by surprise.

After this loss, Mr. Shaibel says that he will teach Beth the names of the squares. She asks if she’s good enough now to learn. He asks how old she is, and she answers: eight. He says in reply that she is “astounding.” He then pulls out a bottle of whiskey and drinks from it. She asks him to teach her while wondering what the whiskey would taste like.

In the middle of the night, Jolene comes over and sits on Beth’s bed, saying that she wants to try something fun. She puts her hands on Beth’s stomach, and Beth tightens. Jolene starts to rub further down Beth’s body, and though it doesn’t hurt, Beth resists it. Jolene then pulls Beth’s own hand under her nightgown, hitting a spot that’s warm and damp, asking Beth to press a little. Beth is frightened, but she does as she’s told. Jolene asks her to rub faster, but Beth says aloud that she doesn’t want to and pulls her hand away. Footsteps come down the hall, and Jolene gets up in a hurry as Beth remains still in the dark. After the women leave, Beth takes three pills. The next day, Jolene calls her the “ugliest white girl ever,” and Beth says nothing, knowing it’s true.

In the classroom, Beth imagines that the seats are squares on the board and she moves the kids around in her mind like she’s playing a match. She tries not to think about Jolene, with whom she’s not spoken in over a week. On one of her Sunday visits to the basement, Mr. Shaibel gives her a book: Modern Chess Openings. She says nothing but she holds the book tightly, sitting down and waiting to play.

English is dull, and Beth reads Modern Chess Openings in her lap as Mr. Espero drones on. By the third day, she can easily visualize the notations, like P-K4 or N-KB3. She imagines the chess board like a ballet, dancing with the pieces in their endless combinations. Later in the hall, Jolene insults Beth again, and Beth calls her a slur, which stuns Jolene.

The following Saturday, Beth takes six pills and tries to rub herself. She wonders if she’s too young for it to feel good—Jolene is four years older than her. Soon after, Beth asks Jolene what a “cocksucker” is. Jolene explains that a cock is what boys have—like a thumb, and that some girls like to suck on that thumb. Beth is aghast, wondering how someone could do that.

The next Sunday, Beth wins five games straight with Mr. Shaibel. They have been playing for three months, and he can no longer beat her. The following Sunday, Mr. Shaibel invites Mr. Ganz, who coaches the local high school chess team, to join them. She and Mr. Ganz play a game—he’s better than Mr. Shaibel, but she knows after six moves that he will be easy to beat. He is forced to resign after 23 moves. He asks her how she practices, and she says she plays with Mr. Shaibel—she doesn’t yet want to tell him about playing in her mind.

Beth and Mr. Ganz play another game; after 20 moves, Beth points out her upcoming mate in three. Mr. Ganz takes half a minute to see it and says how astonishing she is. As he leaves, he gives her a present: she hopes it's a chess book, but it’s a doll with blond hair and a blue dress. She asks him to play another game, but he says he has to go. As Beth leaves the basement, she drops the doll in a trashcan.

During Health class, Beth finds a picture of male anatomy in the back of the book, but she still can’t quite understand it—the men have what looks like a purse with a round thing down in front of it, which she guesses is a cock. Meanwhile, the teacher is talking about the importance of eating vegetables.

Mr. Ganz returns the next Sunday, and he and Mr. Shaibel offer for Beth to play them simultaneously. She beats them effortlessly, barely thinking about the continuations. They start again, and Beth gets up to look out the window—she took seven tranquilizers the midnight before and still feels lethargic. Mr. Ganz tells her that he has moved, and she calls out her next moves to Mr. Ganz and Mr. Shaibel. She quickly mates Mr. Ganz without looking at the board, and Mr. Ganz is in shock.