Chess Masters: the Endgame

[Nick Ivell]

Thanks for all your work on this. Perhaps I should have said realistic positions, which 5 clearly is not so I did not try.

In general I would have liked serious tactical tests, rather than the more random ones.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Apart from the trivially easy first puzzle (and strong players have still overlooked that sort of thing!) I think they all have some merit.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

My solution for 8 queens was to put them all on a1, a2, a3, b1, b2, b3, c1 and c2. How do you get a position with 10 squares not controlled by the queens?

Perhaps this should be a PM, since there may be only two people interested, but it's almost over!

That is the right idea, but there is a big improvement by moving the a3 queen, freeing three squares, to c3, where it costs none. You can then move the queen on c1, where it also controls three squares, to a variety of places which control only two.

I doubt that the resulting setup can be improved.

Thank you Nick. The position with the 'c1' queen in the hand, ready to put on the board is here (this is an example of the 12-square 7-queens solution):

3ppp2/3pK3/3p3p/6kp/5ppp/1QQ5/QQQ5/QQ6 w - - 0 1

Kings and bishops representing the freedom areas.

I have used White pawns below (Black queens looked nicer, but the forum software barfed) to represent the six squares that the eighth queen can be placed.

3ppp2/PP1pK3/P2p3p/6kp/5ppp/1QQ5/QQQ3P1/QQ3PP1 w - - 0 1/pos]

[Richard James]

An online review from 2007 Mastermind champion David Clark: (https://lifeaftermastermind.blogspot.com/)

It’s not really my inclination to write about non-quiz games, but I feel I should make an exception in the case of “Chess Masters – The Endgame” I mentioned it yesterday when complaining about the BBC postponing the last Mastermind semi-final while keeping this show in place. After all, it wasn’t me who decided to make this show the filling in a Mastermind – UC sandwich. If you don’t want me to comment on it then keep it the hell away from Quizzy Mondays.

Let me state my lack of chess credentials before I start. Draughts was my game when I was five years old – nobody in the house could beat me. Apart from my Dad, that is. I never once managed to beat him and Lord knows, I tried. Mind you, he never beat me at Scrabble, so fair’s fair. I knew about chess from reading “Alice Through The Looking Glass”, and I was desperate to learn how to play it. Here I have to pay tribute to my father. He saved his cigarette coupons and traded them in for a chess set. A family friend taught me the moves and the point of the game, but this was a bit of a waste since nobody else in the family could play.

I began playing against school friends and it didn’t take that long to convince me that this was not necessarily going to be my game. I’ve played sporadically since, but have never been much cop. So bear that in mind.

So let’s get down to Chess Masters – the Endgame. My first thought was that this was a bit of a rum old show. Now that the final has been and gone I see no reason to change this assessment. I mean, I’m not entirely sure who it was for. Yeah, there was a spark of interest in the game when “Queen’s Gambit” became an unexpected Netflix hit. But come on, that was five years ago! Have I learned much more about chess? Well, I already knew that it is a psychological game, a fact that all concerned with the show seemed desperate to ram home with monotonous regularity. I can’t see that it will have convinced many who don’t know much about the game, that it really is a great game – which it is. But somehow I can’t see it having had great appeal for those who love and understand the game either. In a nutshell:-

- Although games were played in each show, you got to see very little of each.

- As much time as was given to the games was also given to chess puzzles, used to eliminate some of the contenders. In case we might be tempted to try to work it out for ourselves Grand Master David Howells would explain the solution before even showing us the contenders giving it a go.

- There was a ridiculous attempt to ‘sex – up’ the games. Each of our contestants was given a nickname – The Unruly Knight – The Chess Princess – Jet – Wolf (alright, those last two were really original gladiators.) Co-expert, Anthony Mathurin so relentlessly oversold every move that each contender made that you just wished someone would have chucked a bucket of water over him and told him to calm down.

- It was presented by Sue Perkins – undoubtedly an intelligent and witty person, but she seemed to be in full frothy and light Bake-off mode.

I felt, to be honest, a bit patronised by the show. It seemed to me to say that we, the audience, do not possess the attention span to be able to take more than five minutes of actual chess at a time.

The sad thing is that a TV chess competition is not actually a terrible idea. But if you’re going to do it, then do one game per show, and credit the audience with having the attention span to follow it for 20 – 25 minutes.

The BBC has an admirable record of allowing a show a couple of series to find its audience, so Chess Masters: The Endgame might be back for a second series. Without major surgery to the format though I wouldn’t put money on it getting a third.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Direct link to the specific blog:

https://lifeaftermastermind.blogspot.co ... thing.html

Had not encountered the term "Quizzy Mondays" before. I wonder if putting this programme there was a good thing overall? It got the audience, and it was very different to Mastermind and University Challenge.

Is there a chance that someone might champion a full hour format? I suspect that maybe the real success for this format might come in a different country.

'David Howells' does have a certain ring to it. Maybe Clark was thinking of the Welsh surname, given that the show was set in a luxury heritage hotel in Cardiff?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howells_(surname)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A very interesting review of the series here from Anthony C. Green (the name sounds familiar):

https://countercultureuk.com/2025/04/28 ... game-show/

Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, 1976 -83, I was a ‘serious’ chess player, meaning that I competed for a club and played in small tournaments, such as weekend chess ‘Congresses’. My club was Immingham, after discovering this new club through an advertisement on a notice board at his Conoco oil refinery workplace.

He goes on to say a lot more about the programme and his views on it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

A very interesting review of the series here from Anthony C. Green (the name sounds familiar):

https://countercultureuk.com/2025/04/28 ... game-show/

Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, 1976 -83, I was a ‘serious’ chess player, meaning that I competed for a club and played in small tournaments, such as weekend chess ‘Congresses’. My club was Immingham, after discovering this new club through an advertisement on a notice board at his Conoco oil refinery workplace.

He goes on to say a lot more about the programme and his views on it.

On re-reading this morning, not as interesting as I had initially thought, with some unnecessary (and borderline offensive) remarks and some bits that are just plain wrong:

Poor Grandmaster David Howell. I remember his name from Chess magazine (‘Chess, Sutton Chess Coldfield’ was where everybody sent postal orders for their clocks and score pads before the internet existed) as a prodigy of roughly the same generation as Short.

For the record, Nigel Short was born in 1965 and David Howell was born in 1990 which is 25 years later. Very much not "roughly the same generation"! It seems Mr Green is remembering James Howell (born 1967). Which is unfortunate.

The blog author does also refer to:

Popular television magician David Nixon also had a late-night television program devoted to chess, which was excellent for beginners and those starting out on their competitive chess ‘journey.’

There is a thread on this forum from 2015 that covers some of that history:

David Nixon and Horace Shepherd old TV Recordings enquiries.

[Roland Kensdale]

Paging Nick Ivell: puzzles to solve in Aisle 5!!

I have worked out what the puzzles were! (By laborious use of the pause button.)

No poll will be run to see which puzzle is the hardest, but you do see why they didn't use the additional footage that presumably exists of Thalia solving puzzles three and four and trying puzzle five.

Anyway, go and try them out! Nick, let us know if you find any of them educational.

ALL FIVE CHECKMATE PUZZLES FROM THE FINAL AND THE TIEBREAKER

Chris, thank you for your work in establishing the puzzle positions, and your other investigations of the programme. I think you may be an unofficial post-production assistant.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Leonard Barden leads with the result in his column, including a photo of the two finalists and the news that the viewer figures rebounded for the final. Plus an insider view from unnamed ECF sources about the prospects for a second series.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... is-crowned

BBC Two’s Chess Masters: The Endgame divides opinions as winner is crowned

[LawrenceCooper]

Leonard Barden leads with the result in his column, including a photo of the two finalists and the news that the viewer figures rebounded for the final. Plus an insider view from unnamed ECF sources about the prospects for a second series.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... is-crowned

BBC Two’s Chess Masters: The Endgame divides opinions as winner is crowned

I'm still puzzled by this: "a continuing debate between experts, who found it patronising, and social players, novices and children who enjoyed its light touch and focus on personalities." but i'm comfortable being in the latter.

[Jon Mahony]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... is-crowned

BBC Two’s Chess Masters: The Endgame divides opinions as winner is crowned

I would expect some people who can actually play next time round...

Ok, maybe that's not fair, but you really would expect the standard of televised chess to be a lot better than it has been with this, considering they are going to crown the winner "Champion of England" or whatever it is, and get that coveted trophy

Personally, I would dispense with all this tosh and just re-boot the Mastergame - we don't need a load of infantile nicknames and to see a load of polite 2025 snowflake trash talking. Just get some strong players and let us hear what they are thinking during the game - jobs a good un! I would consider Ginger GM pushing 'Arry all up the board and telling us about it, a distinct upgrade after this thing.

[LawrenceCooper]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... is-crowned

BBC Two’s Chess Masters: The Endgame divides opinions as winner is crowned

I would expect some people who can actually play next time round...

Ok, maybe that's not fair, but you really would expect the standard of televised chess to be a lot better than it has been with this, considering they are going to crown the winner "Champion of England" or whatever it is, and get that coveted trophy

Personally, I would dispense with all this tosh and just re-boot the Mastergame - we don't need a load of infantile nicknames and to see a load of polite 2025 snowflake trash talking. Just get some strong players and let us hear what they are thinking during the game - jobs a good un! I would consider Ginger GM pushing 'Arry all up the board and telling us about it, a distinct upgrade after this thing.

Isn't that already done to saturation point on the internet though?

I really don't understand the negativity and the snide comments about the standard of the players. Of the twelve, two of them have played in Olympiads and given that some of them only learnt the game during Covid they seem far stronger than a lot of the players you would find playing on chess.com I daresay that if any of us were put under the spotlight with tv cameras on us we might find that we aren't as good under pressure as we like to think we are.

[GrahamStuart]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/ ... is-crowned

I would expect some people who can actually play next time round...

Ok, maybe that's not fair, but you really would expect the standard of televised chess to be a lot better than it has been with this, considering they are going to crown the winner "Champion of England" or whatever it is, and get that coveted trophy

Personally, I would dispense with all this tosh and just re-boot the Mastergame - we don't need a load of infantile nicknames and to see a load of polite 2025 snowflake trash talking. Just get some strong players and let us hear what they are thinking during the game - jobs a good un! I would consider Ginger GM pushing 'Arry all up the board and telling us about it, a distinct upgrade after this thing.

Isn't that already done to saturation point on the internet though?

I really don't understand the negativity and the snide comments about the standard of the players. Of the twelve, two of them have played in Olympiads and given that some of them only learnt the game during Covid they seem far stronger than a lot of the players you would find playing on chess.com I daresay that if any of us were put under the spotlight with tv cameras on us we might find that we aren't as good under pressure as we like to think we are.

I completely agree with Lawrence - My estimation of the strength of the players were that they were ranged from 1500 to 1850 ECF. I think someone mentioned the final game was not of a great standard and I disagree with this - for the time limit it was a very good game, which could have gone either way.

I watched the program with my wife who is a non chess player and she enjoyed it, as she could follow what was going on without understanding the chess aspect. She has seen me watching other chess streams and has not looked twice, no interest in knowing Magnus's deep understanding of a chess position, or a brilliant (or dubious) sacrifice by Simon Williams. To be popular the program has to be of interest to current and new chess players and non chess players. I think it achieved this on the whole - a number of current chess players do enjoy it (and can look past the annoying parts).

Another aspect of having players of this strength is that it gives more options for the programmers to choose people who are good for TV, the stronger the players the less options there are, and I did not really want to see 12 2200 strength juniors battling for the title.

I hope the BBC have another series, and they will probably tweak it - I wont be around if we have to wait another 31 years before Chess is on mainstream TV so will enjoy it whilst it is.

Both finalists would have beaten 80% of the members of our chess club and congratulations to Thalia for winning and for Richie for just missing out in time trouble. With 43 years between them it was a battle of the ages in the end.

Also many thanks to Christopher for all his analysis and re-creating of positions - much appreciated

[Roger de Coverly]

I hope the BBC have another series, and they will probably tweak it -

I doubt they can get much mileage out of the multiple piece puzzles or the pawn race. That's because they can be pre-prepared by anyone expecting them to come up. The mate in 1, mate in 2 etc. ladder as seen in the final is likely to have more mileage.

As to the quality of the final game, a player was a piece up, missed a mating trick and went on to lose.

[Ian Thompson]

I really don't understand the negativity and the snide comments about the standard of the players.

The programme got off to a bad start by claiming the players were of a very high standard when that's obviously not the case. If most of them had been described as enthusiastic newcomers to the game who were still learning and improving the comments might have been different, although I still think the minimum standard required to take part should have been higher than it was so we didn't see so many pieces being blundered.