I've loved 'The Queen's Gambit' for many reasons, one of which - the most important to me - being that it 'got' the romance of the Soviet game just right in its final episode. A shortish thread about what it was to be a chess fan growing up when the USSR ruled over 64 squares.

I was not a Communist. But, chess-wise, I was on the side of the Soviets. Most of the real artists at the board were Soviets. They played imaginative, risky, glamorous chess. Bronstein, Spassky, Geller, my hero then and forever: Mikhail Tal. Stein, Keres, Nezhmetdinov.

Even Petrossian, the 'boa constrictor'. Chess was taught in Soviet schools. To the Party, it was a means to show the world the USSR was number one. To the ordinary citizens, it was a means to escape tyranny, and much more than that: a path to artistic beauty - and freedom.

They played everywhere, in parks, schools, factories, universities. That last scene in 'The Queen's Gambit' just gets it. Yes, Soviet taxi drivers and park sweepers gathered round the wireless to listen to the update from the big tournament,replayed the games on their cheap sets.

And so did I. I spoke no Russian, but scraped some pocket money to subscribe to '64' and 'Shakhmaty v SSSR', so I could play the games from the Spartakiad with my friends from the Rouen chess club. Money well spent.

I was a sucker for that particular Soviet romance. A country that produced Yuri Gagarin, Mikhail Tal, Lev Yashin, Valeriy Brummel, Mstistlav Rostropovich, Olga Korbut and Valentina Tereshkova had to have something to go for it. But what got to me most was chess.

In the USSR, it was the most popular sport, a sport which requires hours and hours of study, takes hours and hours to complete, yet produces moments of sublime beauty. A bit like cricket, really. Millions of people played it, lived for it there. The USSR was our promised land.

You could feel this and be aware the USSR was also where millions have been starved to death, tortured and shot. What chess did was to throw a bridge to your brothers & sisters over there. I envied their chess. They envied everything else I'd got. I still envied their chess.

When Misha Tal first came to Hastings in 1963-64, his first comment was that it was not by chance that the local chess club was based in 'Paradise Street'. To pass St Peter's gate, all we had to do was to push pawn from E2 to E4. All patzers welcome.

So I am truly grateful to the people behind 'The Queen's Gambit' to have understood this, and woven it into their narrative. Thank you.