English Chess Forum

I just had another one of my GOOD ideas.

You know the quiz show 'the chase' ? Well what about this - a chess version of the chase where 4 players compete against a grand master but instead of general knowledge questions (or certainly not "chess" knowledge, where question setters tend to ask ridiculous things like who is the highest scorer not to win the individual championship in the lesser wilderness league) it would be speed puzzle solving. Chess.com already has a puzzle rush system established so it wouldnt take too much of a stretch to get something like that established as a show, and I reckon it would be a pretty big hit in the chess world where there are loads of top solvers who would most likely be up for being a chaser.

There are many worse ideas available on television. It occurs to me though that if the Chaser were Jonathan Mestel or John Nunn (e.g.), he would win every time. At least with the regular Chase, the Chasers do have some (but not many) gaps in their knowledge.

This seems like it would be a cool show if done. The prospect of beating a GM at something might interest many average players.

The obvious "Chaser" of popular choice would be Danny G.

Simon Williams would also be great entertainment too, but then so would spielman as he seems pretty intelligent and witty whenever I've seen his commentary.

I reckon the teams would win from time to time - doing a long session of rapid fire problem solving can burn you out a bit, so the GM's would probably dip in standard when they got tired, plus there are some real puzzle solving freaks to be found in amateur chess who would do surprisingly well at that format.