As the year draws to its end, all its calamities and horrors parade once more before my eyes and I realise it’s been a particularly depressing year. All the shapeshifting boards, the illegal setups, the missing kings, the highly implausible bishops, the straight-up impossible bishops – it’s getting too much. So today I take a bit of a breather. I’m talking about a publicity campaign for a large, well-known company that I don’t need to introduce. To make it extra soothing, I even picked one of the handful of advertisements that actually make sense. You see, according to Siemens, their vacuum cleaners are quiet. So quiet that you can use them, without disturbing anyone, during a wedding or an opera.1 Or even during the world chess championship.
In the ad, we see a fictitious world chess championship match between the equally fictitious Paskarov and Charles, 2 while the cleaning lady is in the corner vacuuming to her heart’s content. The scene looks perfectly plausible. The table seems to be put on the dais of a theatre somewhere, which is not an uncommon location for a chess match. There’s a rug to dampen the players’ footfall should they decide to wander off. There’s an old fashioned Gardé clock.
And, most importantly for us, there is a demonstration board. A demonstration board which has been very naughty, apparently, because it is kept safely behind bars that obscure quite a bit of it. Still, it’s quite clear what the position is:3
This is why, when I wanted a peaceful end to the year, I chose this ad: this is a standard Queen’s Indian position. It probably arose after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. g3, although other move orders are possible, and there is absolutely nothing remarkable about it. The worst I could say is that this is very early in the game to lean back quite as far as Mr. Charles does or to think quite as deeply as Mr. Paskarov seems to be doing. Especially since it’s Charles’ move.
But it’s quite possible that Mr. Charles is surprised because his opponent usually goes for the Nimzo-Indian instead of the Queen’s Indian. Perhaps he is wondering what Paskarov is planning. Does he have a novelty somewhere? Is he aiming for a quiet game?4 Is he just trying to avoid preparation himself? So even about this I cannot complain. So the year ends on a fully positive note. Let’s hope it sets the tone for 2026!5
Realism: 5/5 Not only is this a position that has actually appeared in real games, it has appeared in thousands of them. There might even be more chess players that have had this on the board than that haven’t.
Probable winner: My guess would be nobody. The Queen’s Indian is not the most conducive to a decisive outcome. A draw is anyway the most likely outcome in a match on this level.
1. [I honestly think few people would notice a vacuum cleaner during the Walkürenritt.] ↩
2. [Charles? After naming the other player Paskarov? Why not Schifer or something?] ↩
3. [Even Siemens vacuum cleaners are not as quiet as this diagram editor!] ↩
4. [Like a Siemens vacuum cleaner. Perhaps that’s an extra layer of meaning to this ad.] ↩
5. [Or maybe even for 2026 – who knows.] ↩