Chess Masters: the Endgame

[Alistair Campbell]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qaU-eRjR58

Thanks - interesting - I think more enjoyable than the actual episode, which I didn't enjoy so much this week, I'm not sure why. Perhaps I don’t find the new bunch as engaging as the first batch, or maybe it was some overfamiliarity with the concept.

I wonder why the viewing figures were up? A statistical quirk? Is the programme building up a following? A boost from the presence of new players? Was there nothing else on? Something to do with the weather or the clocks going forward?

And what's with the trash talking? Is this compulsory? I caught an episode of some daytime quiz before Pointless which seems to encourage this sort of thing, to the apparent discomfort of the competitors.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I too have now watched Craig Robinson's analysis of his game against Kel, and it was really interesting what Craig has to say, and he (Craig) is clearly a stronger player than he comes across as on the show. Craig himself says this at one point, making a forceful argument that the pressures of the show means that the participants most likely did not perform to the best of their abilities. I for one will be less judgemental after watching that.

[Mike Gunn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qaU-eRjR58

There's an admission that he had never played five minute chess.

I think the move rate they were playing to was ten minutes with 5 second increments. Under FIDE and ECF rating rules, that's Rapidplay rather then Blitz. What we didn't see much of was how long they were taking over individual moves.

I think that what we are watching is a heavily edited version of the games. They probably get the players to play the games and then get them to play the moves again, telling them to pause in certain positions (so viewers can consider the position in the light of the commentary).

[Ian Thompson]

I think that what we are watching is a heavily edited version of the games. They probably get the players to play the games and then get them to play the moves again, telling them to pause in certain positions (so viewers can consider the position in the light of the commentary).

That could be challenging and time consuming. I suspect some of the players would be unable to remember their games and would need to be told what moves they'd played. If you wanted to avoid obvious continuity errors you'd have to be very careful with showing the clock and the times on it.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Have only spotted one obvious continuity error so far (see the screenshots here):

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14592&start=285#p316836

Not bothered to check clock times yet. I suspect the board level shots are taken in real-time, and it is the overhead shots that get redone, and then redone and redone. But someone with actual first-hand knowledge (e.g. one of the contestants or one of the consultants) will at some point probably 'reveal' the methods. Some of the cameras will be massive ones that wheel around on the floor, others may be handheld, but I lack knowledge of where TV camera technology is at these days.

[jholyhead]

I think that what we are watching is a heavily edited version of the games. They probably get the players to play the games and then get them to play the moves again, telling them to pause in certain positions (so viewers can consider the position in the light of the commentary).

That could be challenging and time consuming. I suspect some of the players would be unable to remember their games and would need to be told what moves they'd played. If you wanted to avoid obvious continuity errors you'd have to be very careful with showing the clock and the times on it.

I once watched as a colleague was interviewed by BBC News. They filmed him walking into the room over and over again for almost an hour. They had him repeat answers over and over again. Do not underestimate the amount of work involved in 5 minutes of aired television.

A more direct comparison - board room scenes on the Apprentice take an entire day to film.

They could definitely walk through a rapid chess game a few times to get the angles right

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Craig himself says this at one point, making a forceful argument that the pressures of the show means that the participants most likely did not perform to the best of their abilities."

Yes - You are not playing a normal game, where for the most part people are not looking at you. Contestants are probably not used to cameras. When I did Countdown, in the first game, I deliberately only looked at Richard when he was talking, and Carol at the start of each round, and looked down at other times. It was only when the first numbers game was easy, that I looked up and suddenly noticed cameras and an audience as I had forgotten about them. It got easier, although you are well aware that you could soon look a complete idiot!

"I think that what we are watching is a heavily edited version of the games."

"I once watched as a colleague was interviewed by BBC News. They filmed him walking into the room over and over again for almost an hour. They had him repeat answers over and over again. Do not underestimate the amount of work involved in 5 minutes of aired television."

Yes. In 2007, I played in a Spectrum event in Guernsey where Peter Williams (a promising junior) was being followed by a camera crew for a documentary. They filmed our game, but had disappeared when the game actually finished. They then tracked me down, to film a reconstruction, so we pretended to think, and played the moves again.

[John Clarke]

"Craig himself says this at one point, making a forceful argument that the pressures of the show means that the participants most likely did not perform to the best of their abilities."

Yes - You are not playing a normal game, where for the most part people are not looking at you. Contestants are probably not used to cameras. When I did Countdown, in the first game, I deliberately only looked at Richard when he was talking, and Carol at the start of each round, and looked down at other times. It was only when the first numbers game was easy, that I looked up and suddenly noticed cameras and an audience as I had forgotten about them. It got easier, although you are well aware that you could soon look a complete idiot!

"I think that what we are watching is a heavily edited version of the games."

"I once watched as a colleague was interviewed by BBC News. They filmed him walking into the room over and over again for almost an hour. They had him repeat answers over and over again. Do not underestimate the amount of work involved in 5 minutes of aired television."

Yes. In 2007, I played in a Spectrum event in Guernsey where Peter Williams (a promising junior) was being followed by a camera crew for a documentary. They filmed our game, but had disappeared when the game actually finished. They then tracked me down, to film a reconstruction, so we pretended to think, and played the moves again.

Can only speak from personal experience here, but whenever I was on quiz or game shows, I concentrated entirely on the questions and getting them answered. Wasn't conscious at all of the audience, either in the studio or further afield. Hard to know if it would be the same when playing a game of chess under those conditions.

I'm sure all that repetition when filming some sequences can be very tiresome. (I always remember Nigel Planer's character in The Bad News Tour being particularly snarky about it.) At least on quiz shows, it's a one-shot affair done in real time, with re-takes being rare and used only when strictly necessary.

[Neville Twitchell]

I have held my tongue so far, at least until I had watched several episodes, but I now have to say that the show is excruciating. I appreciate that it is not pitched at the competitive player, not even the average competitive player, and that it is seeking to encourage the non-player to take up the game or the purely social player to take up the game competitively. And it is of course very welcome that chess is back on our screens and being presented at all. Nonetheless, I feel that the show could be far, far better than it is. The format is all over the place, with a mixture of proper games, puzzles, consultation games, memory tests and so on. A mix is fine if it attracts interest but it just comes across as scrappy and meretricious. The whole thing has clearly been given a bit of 'Traitors' vibe to zhuzh it up, with brief interviews with the contestants and bits of social interaction and even the presence in the commentary box of Anthony Mathurin, late of the second season of "Traitors".
If the producers wanted a chess programme aimed at the beginner, low level player, or social player why not organise a proper tournament, albeit with ordinary players rather than masters, where the games are faithfully recorded in their entirety and shown to the viewer in a readily comprehensible manner and the moves properly analysed. David Howell is prostituting himself here and Anthony Mathurin is there seemingly to do no more than provide screeching, over-sensationalised exclamations, more appropriate to a darts match.

[jholyhead]

It's a TV show. Not a chess infomercial.

The apprentice is also a TV show, not the world's longest investment pitch contest.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Maybe a Dragons' Den pitch is needed to fund a new type of chess show?? Making money might be an issue, but if you get the online views and bring in celebrity podcasters as guests, you might get some traction and market share. Or you might lose a lot of money!

It should really be a separate thread, but it would be easy to generate some ideas here. What I am curious about (to get back on topic) is how episodes 7 and 8 will work.

We know how tonight will work and next week. But we will not get proper previews or blurbs for semifinal week or the final until at least next week.

There are some hints in the opening credits clips. But those go so fast it is difficult to work out if any of the clips are from Week 7 or Week 8. We know there will be six players in Week 7, but it is not clear how many go through to the Final in Week 8.

And how would you make the Final interesting with 3 or 4 players? What will they do differently to eliminate people at that point? There was mention of a simultaneous display, but there must be more than that. I presume the culminating moment will be a game between the last two players left standing for the Grand Title.

[Paul McKeown]

It's a TV show. Not a chess infomercial.

Whatever it is, it's knowing, deliberate trash.

[Geoff Chandler]

I suppose it is annoying to us lot because we are so used to seeing the board permanently on display and by habit dive in. A few seconds later it is gone (though we will still be thinking about what we have just seen) and the same game is showing a new position 10-15 moves later.
I've no idea how a non-player views this. Maybe they are OK with it.

David, without his hyper sidekick, spending 3 minutes at a basic level going over the critical eliminator game, which is what the half hour show is all about, eliminating a player, would enhance the programme. (IMO)

I knew the 5 Queens puzzle would pop up but I thought it was going to be the one with all squares covered but no Queen attacking each other. Maybe that one will appear soon.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Well, Episode 5, Week 5, whatever you call it, was not that great, IMO. The constant repetition and recapping from previous episodes is now beginning to grate, though I know they have to do it.

Some real clangers in presentation. Why would you show the viewers the solution to the 'Five Queens' puzzle only a few seconds after explaining it? If anyone is reading this and has not watched the programme, you need to pause a few seconds into that segment before the solution (one of them) is shown! For the record, I managed to cover 63 of the 64 squares, failing to find a full solution. Two minutes is really not enough time for this challenge.

But about the presentation in this episode. The way they tried (and failed) to show the 'scores' in the 'Five Queens Challenge' was abysmal. There is no other word for it. The first animated graphic was fine (for the person who came fifth, clearly showing the squares not controlled by the queens), but after that the animations were horribly misleading (the shading of the squares was all wrong, and it felt like the person doing the animation had not been told properly what they needed to do). It feels like no care has been taken over the details. Sure, 99.9% of the audience (and 100% of the target audience) will not spot these errors, but it still feels fake.

And some really weird s**t was going on in the Pawn Race games.

Oh sorry. I swore! Not a problem. The contestants were doing it as well!

"Damn it!"
"Jesus Christ"
"what a prat"

(The forum software has censored my swearing, but not that of the contestants.)

All swearing on-screen was only by Craig, to be fair.

Maybe they thought allowing the language to go in that direction would spice things up a bit? It would be 'genuine'?

Anyway, about that pawn race between Deema and Kel. It obviously got filmed several times (and a suspicion is growing that some of the games might be faked to 'replace' a previously drawn game that they cannot show). It did have the single most annoying piece of commentary in the whole series so far (from Anthony Mathurin):

"She's gone for it! And Kel's fallen for it!"

Er, no. It was a completely forced reply as you well know! (Who writes these lines? *deep breath to calm down*)

There is a positive, in that we got to hear David Howell mispronounce zugzwang, and kudos to whoever insisted that an explanation of this concept be included.

The Eliminator game would have been exciting, except the way they presented it took all the drama out of it. Because of the level this is being pitched at, they had to 'explain' the exciting ending in advance. (Don't worry, it is not that exciting.) To be fair, the position was an interesting one, but to anyone who knows anything about chess, the air of forced entertainment spoils it a bit.

I am quite excited to see who ends up winning the whole series. But I would say the whole thing is best watched repackaged as a 3-hour box set, rather than 4 hours spread out over 8 weeks.

Episode 6 will be the same position for the memory test, after all, why get two positions from Magnus Carlsen for a memory test when you have one already?

The four remaining players from the second heat face a memory puzzle set by chess superstar and world number one Magnus Carlsen. The players have one minute to study the board on the projector and memorise the position of all 26 pieces before it disappears. They then have one further minute to position their own pieces on the chess board in front of them. With 26 points up for grabs, how powerful are the players' memories when under strict time pressure, and what techniques can they use to keep the position in their minds?

EDIT: Oh dear. Not watched the full commentary on the Eliminator game for Episode 5 yet, but it appears that the "winning" move actually loses. The swing in evaluation is from -5.0 to +1.8. It is not at all obvious why until you start to look at it closely, and I know that misses the point. But I do wish there was a way for the presenters to be more honest about the 'truth' of the positions on the board. But that would take hours to explain, wouldn't it? And it would explode the 'myths' being constructed in front of us. The Eliminator game did capture well the swings in fortune in blitz games, and the tension and drama, and the potential for unexpected finishes.

[Roger de Coverly]

The Eliminator game would have been exciting, except the way they presented it took all the drama out of it.

Should it not have been a case of splat in the opening?

The game went 1. d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d5 Ne5 5. e4 g6 6. f4

Black now tried .. Bg4, but doesn't 7. Qa4+ leave Black in serious difficulty and in danger of losing a piece, admittedly for a couple of pawns.