Netflix has a new popular mini-series called "The Queen's Gambit." I give it five stars! Highly recommend it, you will enjoy every minute of it! It's a fictional story about an orphan chess prodigy. Yes, Chess! And the series makes it super exciting and entertaining.

I learned Chess as a young man in Cuba and grew up with stories of a Cuban-born chess prodigy. This is why I enjoyed this show so much. It reminds me of him. They even honor him in certain episodes!

For example, they described a 1901 exhibition match, where a young 13-year-old boy beat Cuba's national chess champion, Juan Corso. As described by Irving Chernev, "...This young boy averaged less than a minute for all his moves..."

This young boy was Jose Raul Capablanca; he was born in Cuba in 1888 and died in 1944. He learned to play Chess by watching his father, who was a Spanish soldier in Cuba. Capablanca later became the third world chess champion from 1921 to 1927 and was very influential in the chess world. 

Capablanca was famous for his simultaneous exhibition events. Games where one player plays many different players. These types of fast-paced matches came naturally to him.

From December 1908 through February 1909, Capablanca toured the USA, and in 10 exhibitions, he won 168 games in a row before losing a game in Minneapolis; his final tally for that tour was 734 games, winning 96.7%

Capablanca played a simultaneous exhibition in Cleveland against 103 opponents, the largest in history up to that time. He was able to win 102 and drawing one – setting a record for the best winning percentage ever – 99.5% - in a large simultaneous exhibition.

If you are interested in Chess or want to learn more about Jose Raul Capablanca I recommend you visiting these links:

https://www.chessgames.com/player/jose_raul_capablanca.html
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1262431
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ra%C3%BAl_Capablanca
https://codepen.io/raineyjt/full/Bzjmjy
http://www.chessarch.com/archive/0017_capablanca/capablanca.shtml