https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_chess_players

The Grandmaster title is also automatically conferred, without needing to fulfill the above criteria, when winning the Women's World Championship, the World Junior Championship, or the World Senior Championship. Current regulations can be found in the FIDE Handbook.[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandmaster_(chess)

We can argue chess stats, but it's a fruitless exercise... I'd rather focus on whether or not the series is actually any good, worth watching and if the girl chess is believable in the context of the show...

@CheekyMonkey said:

Is the series actually good, or just hype like Atomic Blonde and other such shows/movies? Is it believable that the girl can chess? Is the story worth spending the time on?

After I kept hearing how great The Queen's Gambit was, I finally decided to watch it.

Expecting a riveting story, I instead got a chapter that unfolds at the speed of wet paint drying, in which a girl who has no facial expressions, or human emotions happens to be exceptional at chess because of abusing drugs. I felt it was like the meandering, plodding style of Jessica Jones but without the compelling parts that made that Netflix show bearable during the slower parts.

I'd rather focus on whether or not the series is actually any good, worth watching and if the girl chess is believable in the context of the show...

I never had any issues believing she happened to be good at chess, it was the decompressed storytelling coupled with a protagonist I wasn't able to invest in that made The Queen's Gambit a boring slog to get through

If you are interested, here is an article that shows the differences between the book & the miniseries.

https://www.looper.com/269347/the-biggest-changes-netflixs-the-queens-gambit-made-to-beth/

If you are not a chess player and you harbor some bias against women's intellectual prowess, perhaps you will not accept a woman champion chess player. If you don't or have doubts it might affect your opinion of the movie. However, as the movie establishes quite quickly, chess is ONE domain where it is your ability on the board that matters ....nothing else! It is not luck, physical prowess, wealth, race, nationality or anything else. Chess is truly, the great human equaliser. That's the point! As a lifelong chess player I appreciate the depiction of Beth's manifestation of the the chess board on the ceilings and the following question asked: "Do you play games in your head?" and the answer "Doesn't everyone?" Your mind is ALL you need. As the series aptly illustrates, like everything else , there ARE dangers to over fixating on the sport and the popular notion that drugs improve mental acuity is properly destroyed . If I have a mild general criticism of the series it's that the actual 'Queen's Gambit' opening wasn't highlighted more. I think ONE game showed it being started but in a seven part miniseries, I would have loved for the director to link the opening more to Beth's life. It might have led to an increased popularity of the opening or even the game itself. Also Chess teaches it's practitioners to develop several other very useful qualities like patience; determination; the ability to see the OTHER person's pov and a general sense of fairness. ALL of Beth's opponents eventually came to support her because the TRUTH of her ability is undeniable!

Reimagined and revisionist treatments of history are very popular lately. This was compelling to me as a cinematic exercise and a chance to look at a pretty face for a while, but standing back and looking at it for what it is leaves me with a bad feeling. Its popularity (along with other tripe of its kind) will open the doors for even more revisionist and reimagined history.

If Beth was an aspiring chess champ, fine, but the filmmakers created a history that just never happened, which seems really unfair to be honest.

Queen’s Bandit strikes me as artificial feminism that is really just repackaged chauvinism. When you dig down, it’s empowering in name only — and one-dimensional plot points. I see men wrote it, as well. Not that there aren’t male writers who can represent women well, but they’re the minority to the rule.

I didn't end up watching the show.