When Netflix created The Queen’s Gambit in 2020, it likely didn’t expect what it would do for the little-appreciated game of chess all the way in Pakistan.
Five years on, the flurry of interest the hit series initially roused may have faded away, but its enduring impact on the popularity of the game, particularly among women, shows up in subtle ways. Sometimes, even on national television.
For cricket-obsessed Pakistanis, chess has never really gained mainstream attention. And maybe understandably so because, let’s be honest, the game does have a PR problem. It’s not telegenic, nor does it give you the chance to scream at your screen in anticipation like a Pakistan versus India final does.
So to see a prominent political figure, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, battle it out against a local talent was pretty surprising for a historically niche but passionate community. As far as symbols go, this one signalled something bigger: better institutional support, more tournaments, and perhaps even a shift in how the game is usually perceived.
Playing against the chief minister was 17-year-old Mehak Maqbool, who first learnt the rules watching her cousins play when she was around six years old. Seven years later, at age 13, she formally started training under coach Awwad Mirza at her school, SMB Fatima Jinnah.
Maqbool won the first over-the-board tournament she played at Karachi University in the under-14 category, a feat that sustained her interest in the game in the years that followed. Mehak told Images she has noticed an increase in the number of women playing chess in the past few years. She credits her school for her achievements and supporting her financially. “I’ve graduated from school but I still go there to train,” she said.
In 2011, non-profit organisation Zindagi Trust, founded by activist and musician Shehzad Roy, introduced chess into the curriculum at its two adopted schools, SMB Fatima Jinnah and Khatoon-e-Pakistan. The programme was guided by the late Shehzad Mirza, Pakistan’s first International Master (IM) and a well-known name among local players.
International Master is a title awarded by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to players who have achieved a specific skill level. It is the most coveted title and is right below Grandmaster (GM).
Maqbool is not the only girl to have benefitted from the Zindagi Trust’s chess curriculum. For Maliha Ali, now a final-year medical technology student, SMB Fatima Jinnah was an avenue into the world of competitive chess, where she formally trained from grades four to eight.
Ali said having played the game from an early age helped her develop problem-solving skills later in life. “Chess is not the kind of game where you scream or yell, so it makes you more composed,” she told Images.
She too noted an increase in the number of women as well as younger people interested in the game, particularly after the pandemic.
“Earlier, chess used to be associated with older men. We hardly saw as many younger people, but lately, that trend has changed,” she explained.
According to the Zindagi Trust’s social media manager, Hassaan Naeem, the decision to introduce chess in the school curriculum was driven by the belief that it cultivates cognitive growth and critical thinking. Despite its eventual success, however, the programme initially faced resistance due to misconceptions surrounding the game.
“Many people wrongly associate chess with gambling,” Naeem explained. “And usually, for people saying this, there’s no proper reasoning to back this up. It would be gambling only if you were placing bets.”
Zindagi Trust hopes to expand the programme beyond its schools and implement it on a grander scale. Apart from its cognitive benefits, students love the initiative because it provides them with a much-needed break from studying.
Pioneers of the game
But to say Pakistani women suddenly discovered a love for chess would be a bit unfair to the seasoned players who have quietly worked to grow the game over the years.
For Zenobia Wasif, who has represented Pakistan internationally in seven Olympiads and across 10 Asian and European countries, chess is an opportunity for continuous learning and creativity. “The moment you think you’ve mastered it, a new challenge arises,” she told Images.
Wasif said when she started playing competitively in 2000, there were hardly any women playing the game at all. “I mostly had to compete against men. But over time, more women have taken up the game, and we now have a thriving community of female chess players.”
Seasoned player Mehak Gul, who first represented Pakistan internationally in Turkey in 2012, said the Pakistan Chess Federation is working hard to encourage young players and women to take up the game.
Referring to her participation in international tournaments, most of which she painstakingly funded in a personal capacity, Gul told Images, “These tournaments are crucial because they provide experience and help us improve our game. If our government supported chess the way it does cricket, we’d see a tremendous difference in the growth of chess in Pakistan.”
The OG chess boom
From October 2020 to April 2022, popular online platform Chess.com saw a surge in the number of monthly active users from around eight million to nearly 17 million. Some of the game’s best players managed to gather huge social media followings, with streaming platform Twitch noting the highest average viewers in February 2021.
The last time chess saw such a surge of public interest was in 1972 when an American player named Bobby Fischer defeated reigning Soviet champion Boris Spassky in what was later termed the ‘Match of the Century.’ Before Fischer’s victory, the championship had been a Soviet stronghold for 24 years.
The match was played at the height of the Cold War and extensively covered by The New York Times, which treated it as a geopolitical face-off. Millions followed it through newspapers, radio, and television, and Fischer’s win was a source of great national pride for Americans.
Pakistan’s Sehba Shah was among the millions who developed an interest in chess following this match.
“The Fischer-Spassky game got me and my brother interested in chess,” she said. “Initially, there was no one to teach us, but then we found our cousin who taught us the moves within 10 minutes.”
Shah, now 59 years old, migrated to Pakistan in 1987 from Meerut, India. She was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at an early age and didn’t fully enter the world of competitive chess, until last year despite playing her first tournament in December 2013. The handful of tournaments she played locally didn’t push her into the arena until July 2024, when she won the female national championship in Islamabad.
Her victory allowed her to represent Pakistan at the World Chess Olympiad in Budapest, Hungary. Reflecting on her experience of winning the national championship, Shah said, “I had an open mind about it. It was not like I was very confident, but I tried to do my best. And by the grace of Allah, I was able to do it.”
Shah said if tournaments had better sponsors and prize money, it would motivate more people to play. “It takes a lot of effort to improve your game, so people only do it if they see any benefit.”
Typically, the International Chess Federation hosts a separate olympiad category for players with disabilities, but Shah’s case is unique in that she qualified by winning a regular tournament. “We wanted to make sure that she plays on the first board of Pakistan,” Chess Federation of Pakistan President Hanif Qureshi said.
“A special provision was arranged by the chief arbiter to accommodate her needs, including daily ambulance transport from her hotel in Budapest to the playing hall,” Qureshi told Images. “A team of officials and staff, including the federation’s senior vice president Saleem Akhtar and Amer Karim, assisted her. Her moves were executed by an assistant.”
Shah was also featured by popular chess news outlet ChessBase India. “These examples are essential for women’s empowerment and support for athletes with disabilities,” Qureshi said.
The second coming
The second wave of public interest in chess in 2020 — exacerbated by the pandemic — might have been a global phenomenon, but it interestingly coincided with the efforts of local stakeholders in Pakistan, reeling in players from diverse backgrounds and popularising the game on a level not really seen before.
According to data obtained from the International Chess Federation, Pakistan hosted 414 rated tournaments between January 2020 and February 2025. This includes tournaments across multiple age categories and time formats. In contrast, 26 such tournaments were held from 2004 to December 2019.
While these numbers sound hopeful, it is important to address the elephant in the room — Pakistan is yet to produce its first (living) grandmaster.
In February last year, International Chess Federation President Arkady Dvorkovich awarded an honorary Grandmaster title to the late Mian Sultan Khan, a chess player from British India and later a citizen of Pakistan. It was received by then-caretaker prime minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar.
This move garnered some criticism. Scottish grandmaster Jacob Aagaard called it a matter of political favours. Local players also thought of the title as performative and historically inaccurate. Most still await a real Grandmaster.
According to the Chess Federation of Pakistan’s Qureshi, there is no logical reason for the country to be so behind when it comes to chess. “There are tons of casual players in the country. We have 150 million youth and a population of 250 million. It makes no sense!”
But because younger people were previously neglected in competitive chess, Qureshi said, it set Pakistan years behind other countries. A series of internal power struggles within the federation made it notorious, he said, largely keeping Pakistan away from fully realising its potential.
Betting on the future
There’s a running joke amongst chess players that if you show up to a game and your opponent’s feet can’t touch the ground, you better resign. Most grandmasters are people who’ve studied and played chess since childhood. It’s rare for someone to start playing the game as an adult and go beyond a certain skill level. There’s Mikhail Chigorin who (presumably) took the game rather seriously at 24 and still became one of the 19th century’s top players. But he’s a rare exception.
And exceptions can’t always be counted on. According to Qureshi, the federation prioritises growing the game among younger people; he highlighted initiatives like the recent National Youth Championship, which he hoped would provide an opportunity to upcoming talent.
But for a cultural activity like chess to truly flourish, Qureshi pointed out, support on an institutional level is necessary. He mentioned Bangladesh’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative as an example of a policy that compels businesses to contribute to social welfare by law. Measures of this sort, he said, are needed to cultivate potential talent within Pakistan.
While Bangladesh rues only producing five grandmasters over the years, that’s still five more than we have produced.
Qureshi emphasised the need to popularise chess on a district level to nourish potential talent so it’s not just players from the big cities who get to compete. Mashal Rashid, an electrical and electronics engineer from Gujranwala, didn’t really get to play because of a lack of women-only tournaments in her district — open tournaments aren’t always accessible either.
Moving to Lahore changed that. Five tournaments later, she was the highest-rated female player in the country in the rapid category. “[In chess], there’s no external factor, there’s nobody actually pushing me on the board. When I lose, that is my own loss. I lost because I was not as good but I can be better. And I like that control over the 64 squares,” Rashid said.
Barriers to entry, gender gaps, and chess content creation
Chess might be associated with intelligence in popular culture, but avid players of the game know not to confuse it for anything other than a highly specialised skill. Sure, being smart helps, but the basics are fairly easy to learn. It’s the mastery of it that takes a lifetime.
“I feel like people need to see chess in a more fun light,” said Menahil Bilal, an A-Level student from Lahore who recently began playing chess as an extracurricular activity. “People who play chess never leave it — that’s the thing about the game. But it’s about getting in in the first place that is the problem. It looks boring and stigmatised from the beginning.”
Bilal first grew interested in chess at the age of 10, after moving to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia. She wanted to learn the game primarily to beat her brother, also a skilled player and former captain of the chess team at his university.
She pointed out an aspect of alienation for younger girls interested in the game. “Unlike most male players who grow up surrounded by chess-playing friends, I never had a female friend who was into chess until I attended an FIDE tournament.”
Gender disparity in competitive chess is something many players discuss and is mostly attributed to a participation gap. If fewer women play in the first place, fewer make it to the top. Ask any female player and they would say sexist remarks aren’t out of the ordinary, and the chess world certainly isn’t short of Nigel Shorts who believe men are just ‘hardwired’ to be better at chess.
A report by the International Chess Federation noted that girls drop out of chess at faster rates than boys at all ages, with the rate being especially prominent after 16. Young girls cannot be forced to take up the game if they don’t want to — which is perfectly fine and is not indicative of their intelligence — but if they are interested, parents must ensure equal opportunities and encouragement as they would for their sons.
It’s also on tournament organisers to provide a safe space for young girls to play; if they drop out, it should be solely out of choice and not negative experiences that make them lose interest before they’ve begun to realise their potential.
According to data shared by Shujaat Ali, president of the Islamabad Chess Association, 415 out of 2,936 registered players in the Chess Federation of Pakistan’s database are women, with the most representation from Punjab, Sindh, and Islamabad. That’s a mere 14 per cent of the total players.
He said his club organises tournaments with minimal entry fees and equal cash prizes for female participants to encourage them to play. “We’ve also tried to introduce family tournaments so women feel safer,” he told Images.
Chess enthusiast Bilal believes chess in Pakistan can be popularised and made more accessible through local content creators and YouTubers who do commentary. It could help make the game more engaging for casual fans, which she thinks is a huge factor for her demographic.
Currently, chess as a category has 2.6 million subscribers on the streaming platform Twitch, with channels GMHikaru, GothamChess, and Chessbrah topping in popularity. But contrary to what one might assume, you don’t need to be good at the game to stream it — above all else, you must engage an audience.
Interpersonal skills and connecting with others are just as important to streaming as one’s chess skills, according to Mafaaz Khalid, Pakistan’s national champion and a regular Twitch streamer. He started streaming by chance in 2019 and, five years down the road, went on to win the National Chess Championship in 2024.
“Securing sponsors is not easy,” Khalid said, referring to the state of chess in Pakistan. “Cricket has been played for many years, which is why it has sponsors, but chess is not popular enough for sponsors to invest money into it. It’s more important to create awareness about the game. Chess has immense educational benefits. India knows this, which is why they invest money into it,” he explained.
India currently stands at number 2 in FIDE’s top 10 federations list. In 1988, Viswanathan Anand became the country’s first Grandmaster, inspiring a generation of talent in subsequent years. The reigning world chess champion, Gukesh Dommaraju, is an Indian prodigy, and the country boasts more than 80 Grandmasters.
With several Chess in Education programmes being launched across Pakistan recently, we can only hope to see an Anand effect sometime soon.
