Can you believe that I’ve been running this blog for so many years without ever covering Star Trek? I should bloody well hope so, because it’s the truth.1 But that’s changing now. In Strange new worlds, the five billionth reboot of Star Trek, there is quite a prominent chess scene in one of the episodes. There’s some.time travel trouble which lands a young captain Kirk in Toronto. He’s destitute, and he wonders what marketable twenty-first century skills might help him improve his pecuniary situation.
And so he goes play chess in the park. I suspect this is not the most efficient way to remedy financial troubles, but it is an excellent way to end up on this blog. The first position is visible as Kirk confidently marches up to the chessboard:2
That’s surprisingly sensible! The position is uneven but pretty balanced. White is a pawn down, but it’s a doubled pawn and he has a strong passed pawn. On the other hand, it’s pretty well blocked and black has everything protected.
In fact, I suspect that this position comes from an actual game, because Kirk wins his first game by sacrificing his queen on h6 in a rather familiar fashion:
That’s the final tie-break game of the 2016 world championship! They must have had someone with some chess knowledge involved in the production. So now, instead of a diatribe against the humiliations our noble game is so often subjected to, it becomes a treasure hunt for finding the games these positions come from.3
What about this one, for example, in which Kirk has just delivered the fatal blow Nf3+? The continuation Kh1 Bf1# is unavoidable:
The final combination is completely forcing, but I’m wondering how it came about. Is there really a plausible way for black to have given up his queen to get this on the board? Or this one (a pawn or two on the queen’s side may be in slightly different places):
It seems a bit more plausible than the previous one, although I still have to wonder how that black king got to h5 and what happened to the other white rook.4 Kirk has just played Qh3+. His opponent interposes the bishop but Qxh4# finishes the game. Apparently, the captain has earned enough money now for the rest of the movie. And I have enough material for the rest of the post.
Realism: 5/5 At least one of these positions comes from an actual game and I’ll take any excuse to give a good grade.
Probable winner: Kirk, Kirk, and Kirk. Picard is not going to be happy about this.
1. [Before this post, the only search result for star trek on this website was the page for the Belgian championship of 1994, in which a certain Verstreken played in the open section and where I wrote the word ‘started’.] ↩
2. [The diagram editor for tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.] ↩
3. [Let me know if you have identified one of the positions! There’s a considerable if entirely imaginary prize.] ↩
4. [Maybe the white rook was a white elephant.] ↩