I don’t think I’ve ever been this topical. The episode we’ll be discussing today aired only on April 27th. Of this year! The plot is that, for the second time in history, a woman, Natalie Laurent, has qualified for the candidates’ tournament, which is being held in a small town in Bavaria. Obviously, she’s the underdog and, just as obviously, she’ll be in the running for victory until the very last round. Her main rival is a vaguely Carlsen-looking American, Theodore Boyle, who is also embroiled in a lawsuit against her because she allegedly cheated in online chess. I think the writers may have heard of the Niemann controversy.
Given the subject matter, it’s not surprising that there is some chess to talk about in this episode. The first real game we see is between the two rivals. We get a pretty clear view of the board, with the sole exception of a few squares on white’s king’s side. This is what we see: 1
This position is ridiculous, of course, but it’s the particular kind of ridiculous that’s perfectly normal for certain variations of the Sicilian. In fact, this position comes from the game Alekseev — Vachier-Lagrave from the actual candidates tournament of 2020!2 There must be some chess person on set. And I have a suspect: we briefly see the live commentary of the tournament — and the commentator is a certain Huschenbeth. Is this his doing?
About halfway through the episode we again see quite a detailed position. Laurent is playing white against the Indian participant Singh.3 I have not been able to find this position, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it came from some high-profile game between two top grandmasters:4
Black plays Rf7, white answered f3. black goes Rfe7, but then we lose track of things. Somehow, white manages to win this. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t show the final moves: losing this position probably involves some rather bizarre moves.
And so we get the most predictable scenario: in the last round, Laurent is playing against Boyle for the tournament victory. We join the game around move forty, and once again the position is quite plausible:
mainly because, once again, it’s from a real game. This position occurred in a Bundesliga game Rafiee — Milov5 from 2021. Laurent, like Rafiee, sacrifices the exchange on d5. For a dozen moves or so, white follows the Fish’s recommendation, but in this position, while the final beats of the plot are playing out in the audience:
she touches her queen! The c4 one! She is therefore forced to play Qd4+. Boyle obviously takes Qxd4+ and now Laurent resigns; she would be mated shortly. This is a strange and anticlimactic ending, but the show makes it more plausible.
All in all, this episode gives me some renewed respect for the fabled Deutsche Grundlichkeit. Perhaps their trains are a hopeless mess and their economy is stalling, but at least they can make believable chess scenes for their TV-series.
Realism: 5/5, 4/5, 5/5 The first and third one get an undisputable perfect grade. For the second one, I was tempted to refine my grading scheme and give 4.5: it’s a very plausible position and I expect it to be from an actual game, I just haven’t found out which one.
Probable winner: The first one ends in a draw, the second one, somehow, in a victory for white, the last one, miraculously, in a victory for black.
1. [This is my favourite candidate for the world diagram editing championship.] ↩
2. [I still have something to complain about, though: they’re playing way too fast!] ↩
3. [His favourite key is B.] ↩
4. [Or if I got something slightly wrong in my reconstruction.] ↩
5. [Oh Milov, my darling, I’ve hungered for your knight.] ↩