Once in a blue moon,1 someone at an advertising agency actually comes up with a decent idea. But the moon has to be a very rare shade of octarine before someone puts two good ideas in a commercial. Yet that is what happened in our subject for today. The first good — even brilliant — idea, was to use chess. The second one was a bit more subtle. The client company, Deprisa, is a package deliverer, and so the ad company decided to suggest incredible care in handling the packages by showing a chessboard during a game, sent via Deprisa and with all the pieces still in their place.
At least, that’s what they want you to think! But there seems to be neither tape nor address on that package. So I suspect what we see is actually someone stupidly putting the board with the pieces set up, together with a note announcing check,2 in a package in the very vain hope that, when it arrives, the pieces will still be where they should be.
And this is where they should be:3
This seems vaguely plausible. Probably, white should have resigned a while ago, but people often do play on with a couple of pieces down. On the other hand, sending a package has a non-trivial cost, so continuing in such a lost position seems like showing off. Or perhaps the suggestion is that Deprisa is so cheap you can afford to play on?
Or maybe, who knows, am I reading too much into this.
Realism: 4/5 All these pieces are very logically placed. There just so happen to be two more of them than could reasonably be expected.4
Probable winner: Black. One pawn shouldn’t be enough compensation for a knight and bishop.
1. [Folklore has it that the moon is made of cheese, so, presumably, a blue moon is made of gorgonzola.] ↩
2. [But, weirdly and stupidly, not the move played.] ↩
3. [This is where you should be if you want to make a diagram.] ↩
4. [Or two fewer, I guess, but I really feel it’s two more.] ↩