Elizabeth "Beth" Harmon is a fictional American character and the main protagonist in the Walter Tevis novel The Queen's Gambit and the Netflix drama miniseries of the same name, in which she is portrayed by Anya Taylor-Joy.

In her teens she is adopted and begins her rapid rise in the chess world, eventually challenging the top Soviet players.

[8] Diana Lanni, a New York chess player contemporary with Tevis who represented the United States at the 1982 Chess Olympiad in Lucerne, suggested she was at least in part the inspiration for the Beth Harmon character, and that her friend grandmaster Larry Kaufman was the inspiration for the book's Harry Beltik character.

Lanni thinks it is plausible she got Tevis' attention when playing at the outdoor tables at Washington Square Park as the only woman, and as someone with depression and addiction problems.

[9] Other real life chess players said to have inspired the character include Bobby Fischer and Tevis himself.