Others have noted the good points of the series that I don't need to repeat. However, I will add I was pleased to finally see a series set in the 1960s that didn't feel the need have the major events of that decade as backdrop, or even worse, make them players in those events.

Chess was, and is, a niche field. However, outside of their obsession with chess, the participants are like the vast majority of other Americans (and the foreigners shown), not involved the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the Kennedys, etc, etc). Not that those and other major events are unimportant, they were, but they weren't day to day concerns for most people. One wouldn't know that from most movies or series set in that era.