‘Queen`s Gambit` fueling a Bay Area chess renaissance
(WorldNews Entertainment)

When I was about 10 and planning to be a chess champion — even though I barely knew my fianchettos from my fingerfehlers — I crafted my own chess set out of papier-mache, the flour-and-water-and-newspaper kind, forming it into little amorphous clumps of varying sizes then sending them into battle on a board made of cardboard squares held together with Elmer`s glue. In later years, I upgraded to a Pirates of the Caribbean set with knights and kings in a barnacled-green metal, as if they`d just surfaced from watery graves. Both sets worked fine, and that`s the beauty of chess – it`s a game of the mind, so there`s no need for the $1,995 Ralph Lauren “Sutton” version unless you want...