Legendary chess player Nona Gaprindashvili sues Netflix for falsifying her story

Nona Gaprindashvili, pioneer and historical chess champion, has sued Netflix after observing that in a passage from 'Lady's Gambit', the Emmy-winning miniseries , she is mentioned by name and it is claimed that she had never faced men, when he had done it often.

Gambit and lawsuit

In the final episode of 'Lady's Gambit', the prestigious Netflix miniseries, an announcer comments on a tournament in Moscow and claims that the chess player had never faced men . The series is fiction, but there is a true chess champion named Nona Gaprindashvili, the first woman to be named a grandmaster.

Now 80 years old and living in Tbilisi, Georgia, he has been upset to find that the television series had erased his successes against male opponents. A 1968 headline in The New York Times, for example, read: "Chess: Miss Gaprindashvili Beats 7 Men in Prestigious Tournament."

Last week, Gaprindashvili filed a lawsuit against Netflix in Federal District Court in Los Angeles, asking for $ 5 million in damages for what the lawsuit claims is a "devastating falsehood, which undermines and degrades its achievements before an audience of millions. of spectators "and asking that the line above her in which they assure that she was not competing against men be eliminated .

As the 25-page complaint details, Nona Gaprindashvili played against many highly rated male champions throughout her career. The lawsuit claims that the line that she "had never faced men" caused professional harm to Ms Gaprindashvili, who continues to compete in high-level chess tournaments , and notes that 'Queen's Gambit' was seen in more than 62 million households in the first month of issuance.

The lawsuit alleges that Netflix blatantly and deliberately lied about Gaprindashvili's accomplishments with the cynical purpose of enhancing the drama by making it appear that her fictional character had managed to do what no other woman, including Gaprindashvili, had done before. Based on the 1983 novel by Walter Tevis, the series won two Golden Globes earlier this year and has garnered 11 Emmys . In addition there are plans to adapt it into a musical and just as Ms. Gaprindashvili has been doing for years through her play and example, the series has inspired more women to start playing chess, while at the same time renewing concerns about sexism in the game.