The Queen's Gambit
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48 free The Queen's Gambit trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
The Queen's Gambit arrived on Netflix in October 2020 and became the platform's most-watched scripted miniseries within four weeks, sending chess set sales up more than a thousand percent and putting Anya Taylor-Joy's Beth Harmon on the cover of everything. It was also the first streaming show to win the Emmy for Outstanding Limited Series. These 48 questions cover the whole seven-episode run and the story behind it: Walter Tevis's 1983 novel and its Yeats epigraph, Scott Frank and Allan Scott's long road to the screen, Mr. Shaibel's basement, the Methuen tranquilizers, the Wheatleys, Benny Watts and Harry Beltik, the losses to Borgov in Mexico City and Paris, and the Moscow finale. Production questions ask why Berlin doubled for Las Vegas and Moscow, who built the games with Garry Kasparov, which real 1993 game became the final, and which Georgian champion sued Netflix over a single line. Easy questions stick to cast and plot; the hard tier is for people who noticed the episode titles. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for a chess-club night.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who plays Beth Harmon in The Queen's Gambit?
Anya Taylor-Joy
Anya Taylor-Joy trained in ballet until she was 15, and it helped: she learned each game's moves as what she called "choreography with your fingers".
Q 02The Queen's Gambit is based on a 1983 novel by which author?
Walter Tevis
Walter Tevis drew on his own childhood: diagnosed with a rheumatic heart, he was given heavy drug doses in hospital, which he said is where Beth's dependency comes from.
Q 03Who wrote and directed every episode of The Queen's Gambit?
Scott Frank
Scott Frank read the novel in the 1990s and tried to make it as a film. It only got made once Netflix let him stretch the story across a whole series.
Q 04In The Queen's Gambit, a Christian group will pay for Beth's final tournament trip if she does what?
Makes an anti-Soviet statement
Makes an anti-Soviet statement: Beth calls the idea nonsense and hands the group its money back, which leaves her unable to afford the trip until Jolene lends her savings.
Q 05How is Beth orphaned in The Queen's Gambit?
Car crash
A car crash kills her mother. Later flashbacks suggest it was no accident: she drives into an oncoming truck after Beth's father refuses to take the girl in.
Q 06In The Queen's Gambit, Beth grows up in which Kentucky city?
Lexington
Lexington is where the novel's author was moved at 11 and bullied at school as an outsider, a loneliness he handed on to Beth.
Q 07What is the name of the orphanage where Beth learns chess in The Queen's Gambit?
Methuen Home for Girls
Methuen Home for Girls hands out daily tranquilizers to keep its orphans calm. When the state outlaws the practice, nine-year-old Beth is left in withdrawal.
Q 08In The Queen's Gambit, which custodian teaches nine-year-old Beth to play chess in the basement?
Mr. Shaibel
Mr. Shaibel refuses at first. He gives in only after she shows she has already worked out how every piece moves just by watching him play alone.
Q 09Who plays the orphanage custodian who teaches Beth chess in The Queen's Gambit?
Bill Camp
Bill Camp's custodian never sees Beth again after she is adopted. After his death she finds his basement wall covered with clippings of her whole career.
Q 10Who plays Jolene, Beth's closest childhood friend, in The Queen's Gambit?
Moses Ingram
Moses Ingram auditioned a month after graduating from the Yale School of Drama in 2019. Jolene brought her an Emmy nomination.
Q 11Which actress and director plays Alma, Beth's adoptive mother, in The Queen's Gambit?
Marielle Heller
Marielle Heller was first cast in the small part of Beth's birth mother. When the actress due to play Alma dropped out, the director, a friend, moved her up.
Q 12In The Queen's Gambit, what is the surname of the couple who adopt Beth?
Wheatley
Wheatley: the husband, a travelling salesman, soon walks out, and Alma and Beth agree to keep it quiet so that Beth is not sent back to the orphanage.
Q 13The Queen's Gambit's writer-director and composer had earlier teamed up on which Netflix western?
Godless
Godless began as a film script that grew into an Emmy-winning drama. Its success led Netflix to let the same team reshape a long-stalled chess film the same way.
Q 21In The Queen's Gambit, Alma's death is attributed to which suspected illness?
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is the doctors' guess, likely worsened by her drinking. When Beth phones her absent adoptive father, he wants no part in the burial.
Q 22In The Queen's Gambit, which Parisian model leads Beth into a late-night bender before the Paris final?
Cleo
Cleo talks her into one drink downstairs. Beth wakes hungover in the bathtub, runs late to the board and loses to Borgov a second time.
Q 23In The Queen's Gambit, Benny repeatedly beats Beth at what the night before the U.S. Championship final?
Speed chess
Speed chess: Benny, a practised hustler, wins every round and empties her pockets, yet Beth beats him in the real game the next day to take the title.
Q 14Who plays the brash U.S. champion Benny Watts in The Queen's Gambit?
Thomas Brodie-Sangster
Thomas Brodie-Sangster's Benny hands Beth her first tournament defeat, then turns trainer and ally, rallying friends by phone to help her prepare for Borgov.
Q 15Which actor from the Potter films plays Kentucky champion Beltik in The Queen's Gambit?
Harry Melling
Harry Melling played Dudley Dursley, then lost so much weight as he grew up that he had to wear a fat suit for his last Potter film.
Q 16In The Queen's Gambit, in which city does Beth lose to Benny Watts yet share the U.S. Open title?
Las Vegas
Las Vegas hosts the 1966 U.S. Open, where Benny rattles Beth by pointing out a flaw in one of her old wins, then beats her the next day.
Q 17In which city does Beth finally beat Borgov in The Queen's Gambit?
Moscow
Moscow is where Beth plays clean: she flushes away her tranquilizers before the final and still pictures the winning moves without them.
Q 18In The Queen's Gambit, Beth's late mother, Alice, earned a Ph.D. in which subject at Cornell?
Mathematics
Mathematics: despite the Cornell doctorate, flashbacks show Alice raising Beth in a trailer as her mental health unravels.
Q 19In The Queen's Gambit, where does Beth visualize chess games at night?
On the ceiling
On the ceiling above her bed: she hides her daily tranquilizers and takes them at night, convinced they help her see whole games play out.
Q 20In The Queen's Gambit, where does Beth first lose to Borgov?
Mexico City
Mexico City: Borgov surprises her with an offbeat opening, and she goes back to the hotel room to tell Alma, only to find her dead.
Q 24Who denied The Queen's Gambit's star a 2021 Emmy?
Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet won the lead-actress prize for Mare of Easttown. The chess drama still left that season with 11 Emmys, level with The Crown for the most of any show.
Q 25The Queen's Gambit was the first streaming show to win which Emmy category?
Outstanding Limited Series
Outstanding Limited Series had been HBO's prize in three of the previous four years. Netflix took it minutes after The Crown gave it a first top-series Emmy.
Q 26Which former world champion joined Bruce Pandolfini as a consultant on The Queen's Gambit?
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov designed the moves of the biggest games himself, reworking an obscure real 1993 grandmaster game into Beth's final showdown.
Q 27Most of The Queen's Gambit was filmed in which European city?
Berlin
Berlin was picked because the once-divided city kept 1950s and 1960s interiors in rival styles. A town hall in Spandau became a Cincinnati hotel lobby.
Q 28After Alma's death in The Queen's Gambit, what does Beth buy from her estranged adoptive father?
Their house
Their house: he first tells her she can keep it, then demands it back to sell. Beth buys him out, throws away his things and redecorates.
Q 29Who composed the orchestral score of The Queen's Gambit?
Carlos Rafael Rivera
Carlos Rafael Rivera was first asked for a score of piano alone. Once footage came in, he and the director agreed it needed an orchestra, which grows as Beth does.
Q 30Late in their final game in The Queen's Gambit, what does Borgov offer Beth that she turns down?
A draw
A draw would have left Beth level with the world champion who had already beaten her twice. She refuses it, plays on and wins outright.