Chess Masters: the Endgame

[Leonard Barden]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... style-open

Unfortunately, Kel has been misnamed as Kai (there was an earlier contestant named Cai).

Both mentions of Kai have now been corrected to Kel.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Kel, as in Keller Instinct (to quote Anthony Machurin). Full name Kelechi Nkwonta.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/media ... asters#kel

Over in the 'popular' vote (12 so far) there is a clear favorite in Thalia. 8 votes, which is twice as many as the others combined.

[Mark Hannon]

5q99.jpg

Whole board in this time.

Have anyone seen the similar 7 Queens puzzle that is in the Radio Times each week

[Alistair Campbell]

Interest on here seems to have waned, in parallel with the viewing figures for programme seven. Perhaps there is just less to complain about?

We had some more inventive ways of eliminating competitors. With regard to the Simul – was it a clock simul? There were clocks present but they were largely (but not completely) ignored. Should I assume this was another “continuity error” with games being recreated for televisual purposes?

I think normally in a simul your best chance is to go for complications in the hope the master misses a trick before they get settled and can coast some games as the numbers reduce. In the featured format, it seemed that the better strategy was to play something dull and consent to losing, but losing slowly.

Is it the final tonight? Are people hosting watch parties for it?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

With regard to the Simul – was it a clock simul? There were clocks present but they were largely (but not completely) ignored. Should I assume this was another “continuity error” with games being recreated for televisual purposes?

I think normally in a simul your best chance is to go for complications in the hope the master misses a trick before they get settled and can coast some games as the numbers reduce. In the featured format, it seemed that the better strategy was to play something dull and consent to losing, but losing slowly.

Can you really call three games simultaneously a proper simul? I have done three games simultaneously against weaker players. We know Bodhana has played more players simultaneously.

Is it the final tonight? Are people hosting watch parties for it?

(oh, you were serious?)

[John Upham]

5q99.jpg

Whole board in this time.

Have anyone seen the similar 7 Queens puzzle that is in the Radio Times each week

Did they ask them to find any of the various solutions to the eight Queens puzzle?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

5q99.jpg

Whole board in this time.

Have anyone seen the similar 7 Queens puzzle that is in the Radio Times each week

Did they ask them to find any of the various solutions to the eight Queens puzzle?

That would be the puzzle that asks how many positions are there where you can put 8 queens on the board and have one or more squares not controlled by the queens?

EDIT: Found a position with 8 queens on the board, where there are six squares not controlled by the queens. Might be a maximal solution.

[John Upham]

EDIT: Found a position with 8 queens on the board, where there are six squares not controlled by the queens. Might be a maximal solution.

Since all 92 solutions require each queen to be on different rank, file and diagonal to all of the other seven queens, I'd love to see a solution where six squares are not attacked by any of the eight queens.

[Nick Ivell]

Lovely people but that was skittles pure and simple. Never can David have had an easier simul.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I was so disappointed that the "5 checkmate puzzles" were not shown in full to the watching audience. I won't say who got them right, except to say that three of the 5 puzzles are never seen properly at all. If you slow the action down, we see one contestant failing Puzzle Five, and another contestant failing Puzzle Three (and later being told, incorrectly, that they had solved three puzzles - or to use Sue Perkins's idiosyncratic phrase "cleared three boards"). The fact that the contestants were not allowed to attempt all five puzzles (if you got one wrong, you were out instantly) was also slightly outside the normal parameters of such contests.

To be crystal-clear: Puzzle 1 (trivial) and Puzzle 2 (tricky, but doable by elimination if nothing else) were shown as chess diagrams to the audience. The audience were shown no chess diagrams of Puzzle 3, Puzzle 4, or Puzzle 5. I think they can possibly be reconstructed from screenshots, or maybe some kind person will publish the positions, but that is just not how you should run a televised chess puzzle competition, even if it is 'just' a segment of a wider competition.

'Chess Masters : The Endgame Full Matches: Eliminator 8' is 48 minutes long. I hope that is worth watching in full.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... iminator-8

[LawrenceCooper]

Lovely people but that was skittles pure and simple.

Possibly part of the reason why I liked the show. Chess shouldn't just be for elite players, I want to see all levels learning, playing and enjoying the game.

[Mark Hannon]

I thought Richie and Thalia had the correct strategy in the Simul vs David. Kel’s decision to sacrifice a pawn very early seems a quite impulsive decision.
I would have liked to have seen the other puzzles. 30 seconds was a long time to take in order to see Qg6ch in the puzzle playoff

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Also slightly disappointed we did not see the finishes in the other two simul games. I think Kel could have lasted long enough with rook vs queen as the other games looked close to checkmate. I am presuming it was number of moves to checkmate. I would not be confident of making a final if I had to try and survive against a GM in a 3-board simul.

At the moment, rather enjoying the commentary from David and Anthony in the Full Game Eliminator. They do have four minutes to fill as White has sunk into deep thought.

EDIT: Shock-horror. Breaking news. Contestant in final breaches etiquette and asks opponent (while they were thinking about their move) if they wanted some water. (Ahem.) [I am just glad it was a good game for a long time and has some interesting features.]

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Brief verdict on that Final Eliminator: cracking game played by Richie, and some lovely tactics there (both the tactics partly described by the commentators and some tactics that they didn't have time to show us) that would have won for White and maybe would have been found at a slightly longer time limit. Ultimately the time pressure told. Congratulations to Thalia on a hard-fought victory over the series as a whole.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The Lichess study for Episode 7 is now out, showing the simul games vs Bodhana:

https://lichess.org/study/VSzJdb5u

I presume a Lichess study for Episode 8 [The Final] will appear at some point as well (maybe with all 5 puzzles).

(N.B. Some of the Lichess studies for some episodes show the wrong results and the wrong names.)

Some overall thoughts (avoid if you don't want spoilers).

Overall, there were 12 contestants.

Heat One contestants:

Nick (eliminated in Episode One - Eliminator vs Navi)
Cai (eliminated in Episode Two - Eliminator vs Navi)
Claire (eliminated in Episode Three - Freestyle Eliminator vs Navi)
Caitlin (eliminated first in Episode 7 [Semi-Final] - first to be checkmated in Bodhana Sivanandan simul)
Navi (eliminated second in Episode 7 [Semi-Final] - Eliminator vs Lula)
Lula (eliminated first in Episode 8 [Final] - tie-break in puzzle round)

Heat Two contestants:

Nessie (eliminated in Episode Four - Eliminator vs Craig)
Craig (eliminated in Episode Five - Eliminator vs Kel)
Deema (eliminated in Episode Six - Freestyle Eliminator vs Kel)
Kel (eliminated second in Episode 8 [Final] - first to be checkmated in David Howell simul)
Richie (runner-up - lost the Final Eliminator vs Thalia)
Thalia (winner - won the Final Eliminator vs Richie)

Individual match-ups:

Episode 1:

Caitlin 1-0 Claire
Nick 0-1 Lula
Navi 0-1 Cai
Nick 0-1 Navi (ELIMINATOR)

Episode 2:

Navi 1-0 Cai (ELIMINATOR)

Episode 3:

Claire 0-1 Navi (FREESTYLE ELIMINATOR)

Episode 4:

Thalia 1-0 Richie
Nessie 0-1 Deema
Craig 0-1 Kel
Craig 1-0 Nessie (ELIMINATOR)

Episode 5:

Craig 0-1 Kel (ELIMINATOR)

Episode 6:

Deema 0-1 Kel (FREESTYLE ELIMINATOR)

Episode 7:

Lula 1-0 Navi (ELIMINATOR)

Episode 8:

Richie 0-1 Thalia (ELIMINATOR)

Two team (consultation) games:

Claire and Navi 0-1 Caitlin and Lula (Episode 3)
Deema and Kel 0-1 Richie and Thalia (Episode 6)

Three games of a quasi-freestyle chess variant (War and Pieces) in Episode 7:

Thalia 1-0 Lula
Caitlin 0-1 Richie
Navi 0-1 Kel

Three simultaneous games vs Bodhana Sivanandan:

Bodhana Sivanandan 1-0 Lula
Bodhana Sivanandan 1-0 Caitlin
Bodhana Sivanandan 1-0 Navi

Three simultaneous games vs David Howell:

David Howell 1-0 Thalia
David Howell 1-0 Kel
David Howell 1-0 Richie

Chess puzzles were:

Bashing Bishops [Episode 1]
Royal Rulers 1 (8-queens puzzle) [Episode 2]
Magnus position memorisation 1 [Episode 3]
Raging Rooks [Episode 4]
Royal Rulers 2 (5-queen puzzle) [Episode 5]
Magnus position memorisation 2 [Episode 6]
Set of five checkmate chess puzzles [Episode 8]

Other chess variants:

Pawn Race 1 (Episode 2)
Pawn Race 2 (Episode 5)

Some observations:

- Navi won three Eliminators and lost one Eliminator
- Caitlin lost two games, one the chess variant to Richie, the other the simul to Bodhana Sivanandan
- Lula won one Eliminator, and lost two games, one the chess variant to Thalia, the other the simul to Bodhana Sivanandan
- Kel won two Eliminators and lost the simul game against David Howell
- Caitlin, Lula, and Kel (along with Thalia) never lost individual games of chess
- Richie and Thalia both only played one Eliminator, the one in the Final
- Kel and Thalia never played against each other in an individual game (they did face each other in a consultation game)

Oh, and I was right. Not a draw to be seen anywhere.

I did enjoy the series overall though. Some interesting puzzles and talking points. Some nice tactics here and there, though not an incredibly high standard of chess (that was never to be expected). Too many games decided by elementary blunders (maybe due to nerves and the time controls). Interesting individual stories. Production values good in terms of visuals and music, but let down somewhat by some of the one-liners (IMO) and the cringeworthy moments of commentary (with some good bits of commentary as well). Post-production editing needs more attention, and some sequences were rushed, meaning the viewers were at times left uncertain as to what was happening. Room for improvement? Definitely. Casting from groups of stronger chess players would be one possible option. One thing that has impressed me is how Sue Perkins stood back and mostly let the chess be on display, with the players telling their stories (not sure if that was a deliberate choice, or comes through from the post-production editing). Enough interest and viewing figures for a second series? Who knows?