Chess Masters: the Endgame

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks!

The user uploading these has said:

Unfortunately the episode 2 PGN's have been lost, I do apologise

[Roger de Coverly]

This is the position after White's Bxh6 sacrifice. The lichess Stockfish is of the opinion that Black should take it and be a little worse. One of the follow up ideas for White is c5. Thus the idea was sound. The .. Nf6 in the game should leave Black a good deal worse according to the engine.

r4rk1/1pqn1pp1/2pb3B/p7/2PPp2N/P5P1/2P2P1P/R2QR1K1 b - - 0 19

[Nick Ivell]

Black absolutely has to take the bishop, or be a pawn down for very little.

The thinking must be: do I get mated? No. So take!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Leonard Barden, in his Guardian column, reports that viewing numbers still declining slightly, but less than before:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... wers-slows

I wonder if the new batch of players will see an increase in viewing?

Leonard references the research by Adriaan de Groot in the 1930s and 1940s.

Long ago in the Netherlands a researcher showed a middle game position for 10 seconds to the former world champion Max Euwe, to a master, a local champion and an average club player.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaan_de_Groot

If you want more positions to test yourself on, go here:

https://www.blindfoldchess.net/blog/200 ... emory-test

But set up properly for the test and don't peek at the positions beforehand!

[Nick Ivell]

I find it all incredibly low-level, and cannot help but link this to the dumbing down of the BBC in general.

[Dragoljub Sudar]

Totally agree about the general dumbing down of the BBC.

The show is not aimed at players of your standard, nor even mine (slightly above hacker, slightly below almost knowing what I am doing). Best thing to do is switch your brain off before watching it and just enjoy it for what it is.

Everyone I have talked to who is a 'social' player, i.e. not a league player, has enjoyed it. Several potential new members have appeared at my club. It clearly appeals to casual chess players, and that is its purpose. Let's not over analyse it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I do wish the BBC would not insult viewers' intelligence and would be willing to give background and history and more explanation for the memory test.

For this specific position, how did people here who tried the test go about memorising it? I split it into four chunks, the big grouping at left, the other big grouping at right, the White Queen and pawns forming a grouping at top right. And then the Black rooks as a separate 'group'.

However, I then misremembered where the black rook at left was. And I completely forgot where the Black queen was. One thing I did make sure to do in the 60 seconds was a sum check. Counting the number of pawns, the total number of pieces, and their colour. And what was missing. That helped me get the number of pieces right.

If I had created a few more memory hooks. Such as the opposing Queens being a knight move apart. There being two pawns attacking the Black knight, and the diagonal formation of the White pieces, the Black queen sitting on top of the bishops, and the single set of White doubled pawns, then I might have been able to piece them together in 60 seconds.

Maybe others memorise this position a different way?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

One of the comments in the most recent Guardian column point out the work on 'chess memory' by Gobet and Simon from 1996:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03212414

Gobet, F., Simon, H.A. Recall of rapidly presented random chess positions is a function of skill. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3, 159–163 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03212414

Abstract:

A widely cited result asserts that experts’ superiority over novices in recalling meaningful material from their domain of expertise vanishes when they are confronted with random material. A review of recent chess experiments in which random positions served as control material (presentation time between 3 and 10 sec) shows, however, that strong players generally maintain some superiority over weak players even with random positions, although the relative difference between skill levels is much smaller than with game positions. The implications of this finding for expertise in chess are discussed and the question of the recall of random material in other domains is raised.

I had forgotten that the presentation time was 3-10 seconds!

[Alistair Campbell]

With regard to the memory problem and relevant research, are the random arrangements of pieces legal game positions?

Presumably, it is likely that a truly random arrangement (particularly if this were a legal position) would still contain some elements that were “sensible” (for example, a black bishop on g7 and a black pawn on g6) which the chess player would recognise instantly in a way that a non-player wouldn’t.

Is there a measure of randomness?

We appear to be saying that the advantage that a relative master has to recall correctly reduces as the randomness increases.

The example chosen in Episode 3 would seem to have a high degree of entropy, for want of a better word, and hence should reduce the probability of the better players succeeding. Perhaps this is intended - for television purposes you may not want the best player to win all the time.

Regarding viewing figures, I imagine that it is normal for figures to decline after the first week, and perhaps after the second week. Is there any “theory” on this – will BBC Executives be lighting fat cigars because they’ve retained 70% of their viewers, or getting their p45s because they’ve lost 25% already?

On this week’s programme, with the reducing cast I would expect to see more development of actual personality (as opposed to the manufactured “let’s give them a nickname that they feel obliged to live up to" hype) and more chess. The production team continues to provide imaginative ways of reducing the numbers rather than via a simple blitz game. It will be interesting to see what they come up with in future.

I’m not sure why the consulting players had to step away from the board after making their move – it would make clock-handling difficult. And were they really discussing their plans out loud?

It was good thought to see some Fischerandom in the wild.

The commentary continues to irritate as does the reference to “matches” rather than “games”. Will “puzzle complete” become a catch-phrase, even temporarily? And I had “see you later, Navigator” left uncrossed on my bingo card.

I was going to congratulate the producers on the brilliant coup of securing Nessie for next week, but I gather I’ve misunderstood. Still, good to introduce some new personalities.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The preview blurbs are up for episodes 4 and 5:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029m3f

In the second heat, six new players face a gruelling game of speed chess and a puzzle called 'the raging rook', which allows the players to showcase their mastery of one of the most powerful pieces.

Maybe a simple 'capture all pawns in a unique order' puzzle again?

We have had the Bashing Bishop, the Eight Queens, and a memory test. You would have thought a knight puzzle would be the logical one for episode 5, but apparently not.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029tzg

semi-spoiler ahead

The five remaining players from the second heat return to the Great Hall to battle it out for a place in the quarter-finals. The sense of trepidation is palpable as they face a mind-bending chess puzzle called 'the five queens'. In the second challenge, the four remaining players are paired up. They go head-to-head as they attempt to play 'the pawn race'.

Repeating the pawn race (if it is an exact repeat) is disappointing. It may be different, as they called the previous one 'Goalkeeper vs Striker'. Five queens is probably what it sounds like.

In case that is not enough anticipation(!), there is also a short trailer called 'A grandmaster move' (this is actually a point of psychology, an action I engage in sometimes OTB as well!).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0kzklwk

In the second heat, the new players start to reveal their styles of play.

Oh, favourite quote from the full Eliminator game from Episode 3, from David Howell (drawing a veil over the fairly tame constipation and laxative jokes):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... iminator-3

I like to talk to my pieces Anthony. My pieces are my best friends, my only friends.

The quote is at timestamp 4:33.

Regarding viewing figures, does anyone know whether the catch-up figures are constantly added to the overall viewing figures? It would be interesting to see if there is a 'long tail' of viewing over time for these programmes. We know as least one poster here (Ian T) was unable to view the programme until Friday.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thanks!

The user uploading these has said:

Unfortunately the episode 2 PGN's have been lost, I do apologise

Fortunately, all is not lost. The Eliminator game for Episode 2 can be reconstructed from the full video. This could then be made into a Lichess study to go with the two already done. It would even be possible to recreate the opening moves of the K abc pawns vs K fgh pawns match-ups, as the losing players blundered early on. And the two failed '8 queens' solutions could be included, along with the one that won (the fourth player never declared a solution). So it should be possible to do a Lichess study of sort for Episode 2, even without the 'official' PGNs that it seems were obtained at the time of recording the show.

Anyway, the Lichess study links so far:

https://lichess.org/study/by/chessmastersanon

https://lichess.org/study/meIbV3b7 (Episode 1)
https://lichess.org/study/YvYuwFOT (Episode 3)

I don't want to use my Lichess account for this. Could people here help with the FENs and positions, and hopefully the person behind the 'chessmastersanon' account (who seems to be following this thread, but understandably wants to remain anonymous) might put up a study for Episode 2? I will try and do a PGN for the Eliminator game, and/or work out how to post a FEN for 8 queens, if that is possible, at some later point today (but need to step away from the computer for a few hours).

[Ian Thompson]

We know as least one poster here (Ian T) was unable to view the programme until Friday.

This evening, a few minutes ago, as it turned out.

As I knew there was a position memory test I was ready to do that and disappointed the programme didn't show the position on the screen for the minute allowed, instead repeatedly cutting away to the contestants and commentators. I had to stop the replay to give myself about a minute. That wouldn't have been possible if I'd been watching it live. Remembering the pawn structure was easy as it looked like a French Winawer. I got 23 of the 26 pieces in the right place, which was disappointing with a whole minute to memorise the position. I've done that sort of test before, but with only 10 or 15 seconds sight of the position.

I was surprised how badly 3 of the 4 contestants did. I thought they would all have got at least some of the pawn structure and a few of the pieces in the correct places.

[Nick Ivell]

To be brutal, the fact that 3 did so badly would seem to indicate that they have little talent for chess. On the bright side, to get 20 indicates some talent.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

This difference between a 10-15 seconds to see the board and a full minute is interesting. Maybe it depends on how many pieces. 26 pieces is only 6 short of the maximum. If there were 10-12 pieces, I would be more confident with only 15 seconds, but I might surprise myself with only 15 seconds for the original position. It might make me focus!

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Oh, one more thing, which was in the chess.com coverage. Lula has done a YouTube video (part of her chess content offerings) analysing her game with Nick. It is interesting for her thought processes, and the combination (common at all levels of chess as you ascend the scale) of knowing some things but displaying lack of knowledge of other things (I would be the same, in different ways).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9wKgFv_0MdA

This is two weeks old now, and relates to the first episode. Apologies if it was mentioned earlier. Only just watched it myself.