¿Jugar a cartas o jugar a las cartas?

 Someone in Instragram, and in Spanish, is recomending Netflix´s "The Queen´s Gambit" and says it is about a girl who "aprende a jugar ajedrez..."

I hear it often now, the absence of the article, after "jugar." But in Spanish, the right way has always been, and still is, "jugar al ajedrez," just as some people "juega a las cartas" o "al tenis" o "al escondite." Beware of natives misleading you. May it be a borrowing from English?