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The Guardian
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
BBC Two chess show keeps 710,000 viewers despite rocky opening week
Chess Masters: The Endgame, BBC Two's most ambitious chess programme for half a century, got off to a rocky start on 10 March, when its opening episode received some rough treatment from critics. The Guardian's Lucy Mangan called it 'so dull it's almost unwatchable'. However, fears of a second week meltdown last Monday proved overblown. Viewers totalled 710,000, still nearly 6% of the television audience, and online comments were milder, focusing on the overdramatic commentary and the hyping of the players as 'rising stars' and 'masters'. The producers would have been on safer ground using 'maestro', as the English Chess Federation allows this term for players performing at a 1400 rating level over a 12-month period. Touch a piece, move that piece, is a basic chess rule for over the board games, but in episode two a player was allowed to touch his rook, then move his king, without comment. Positively, the on demand Full Match version on iPlayer with David Howell's commentary has been highly praised, as was the BBC Four programme How to Win at Chess, a rerun of a 2009 programme with advice on improvement from GMs Ray Keene and Daniel King. This includes a rare section on chess boxing, where rounds alternate between the board and the ring until checkmate or knockout. In Monday's third episode (BBC Two, 8pm) the second group of six players join the action. The new contestants include Kel, 39, from Bolton, who is an experienced league and tournament player and probably the favourite to win the whole competition. For readers who would like to explore chess further, the English Chess Federation has an interactive map with the location of your nearest chess club, while details of clubs in Scotland, Wales and Ireland are here, here and here respectively. Jonah Willow has been England's outstanding performer in the European Championship at the Romanian Black Sea resort of Eforie Nord, scoring 4/6 against strong opposition. The Nottingham 22-year-old, who already has one GM norm from Fagernes, Norway, last year, made a fine start, defeating a low ranked player in round one, then holding his own with four opponents rated 2600 or higher, before a gritty sixth round win. Willow halved in round two against Spain's Jaime Santos, choosing a solid plan with central pressure against the Najdorf Sicilian. Then he won one of the best games of his career against Poland's Mateusz Bartel, using the rare Burn Variation of the French Defence to exploit White's inaccuracies and finishing with a clever tactic. To replay the Bartel v Willow game, click the menu at the bottom right of the link, scroll down to replay mode, then choose fast or slow as you prefer. In round four against the strong Ukrainian Yuri Kuzubov, Willow opted for a well known drawing line in the Four Knights with multiple exchanges, but in round five he was beaten by Turkey's Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus, at age 13 the youngest ever 2600-rated player. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion In Thursday's sixth round Willow scored a hard-fought win where he cleverly utilised opposite coloured bishops to attack his opponent's king. With 4/6 and five rounds to go after Friday's rest day, Willow remains well in contention for his second GM norm. His tournament performance rating (TPR) is 2593, very close to the 2600 needed. Shreyas Royal, 16, England's youngest ever grandmaster, is on 3/6 after being paired with two of the top 10 seeds. The Greenwich teenager drew well with Armenia's Shant Sargsyan, lost narrowly to Germany's Frederik Svane, then had a sixth round setback against the Slovenian, Maksym Goroshkov, who sacrificed a knight for a crushing attack on the king. Yang-Fan Zhou, aiming for his third and final GM norm, has 3.5/6, although against weaker opposition. Zhou scored a good draw in round six against the Italian GM Daniele Vocatero, but his TPR is only 2430, so that his norm chances are now slender. The same goes for Sohum Lohia, 16, England's No 2 junior after Royal, who also has 3.5/6, but with a TPR of only 2146 against the 2450 needed for his third and final IM norm. 3964: 1 Qf6+! Bxf6 2 gxf6+ Kxf6 (if 2…Kf8? 3 Rxd8 mate) 3 Ne4+ Ke7 4 Nxc5 and White wins with his extra knight.
The Guardian
14-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
BBC Two's Chess Masters: The Endgame provokes sharply divided reactions
BBC Two's new eight-episode series Chess Masters: The Endgame, aired on Monday evening at 8pm between Mastermind and University Challenge, has provoked strong but sharply divided reactions, both among television critics and seasoned chess experts and amateurs. The Guardian's Lucy Mangan called it 'so dull it's almost unwatchable'. Although when she says 'the flurry of interest in chess was five years ago', it seems that she missed the publicity bursts for the Magnus Carlsen v Hans Niemann 2022 feud and for Jeansgate 2024, as well as the tens of millions of daily internet games for the world's fastest growing sport. Other national newspaper TV critics have been kinder. The Telegraph calls it 'quietly compelling 'and gives it 4/5, while the Times, with 3/5, says it has 'a wholesome nerdy charm'. The viewing figures were 890,000 against a 1.7m average for the Monday 8pm slot, so the show missed out on the top 10. Mastermind, which preceded it, had 1.6m. Next Monday's second episode will be the real test. There is now an entire 10-page thread on the English Chess Forum about the programme, with its detractors complaining about excessive hype by Sue Perkins and the difficulty of following the chess content, while its advocates claim that a soft approach is what is needed to bring new players to the game. What do Guardian readers think? Tell us in the comments section. Meanwhile, for those inspired by the programme to take up chess across the board, this interactive map shows the location of your nearest chess club. There is also How to Win at Chess on BBC4 at 9pm on Monday, an hour-long programme with practical tips by GMs Ray Keene and Dan King. Aravindh Chithambaram's first prize in Prague last week further strengthened India's growing status as the No 1 chess nation ahead of the United States. The 25-year-old is a late developer with a lower profile than his younger colleagues Gukesh Dommaraju, Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu and Arjun Erigaisi, let alone the former world champion Vishy Anand, but he has now joined the quartet near the pinnacle of the rankings, jumping to world No 14 with a 2741 rating. After his win in Prague, where his 6/9 was the only unbeaten score, Aravindh said that he aims for a 2800 rating within two years. That would be world No 3, and sounds a fanciful target, except that India's top trainer, Ramachandran Ramesh, has called Aravindh 'the most talented Indian after Anand. Self-doubt was his stumbling block, but now he is believing in himself.' Aravindh won the Prague brilliancy prize with two amazing moves against Anish Giri, which blasted open the Dutch grandmaster's king defences. It was one of the most imaginative games of the year so far. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Magnus Carlsen, the world No 1, is semi-retired from classical chess but turned out for his club, Offerspill, last week in the Norwegian League and won all three games, gaining 4.1 rating points. Carlsen's most interesting win was against his former coach Simen Agdestein, who in his youth was also an international football centre-forward. In 1992, Agdestein said that playing against Anatoly Karpov, with whom he drew a match 2-2, was a harder assignment than taking on the Italian defender Franco Baresi, who had been Agdestein's direct opponent on his debut for Norway. The European individual championship starts on Saturday in Eforie Nord, Romania. At stake is the title, a €100,000 prize fund, and 20 qualifying places in the Fide World Cup in India, which in turn will qualify three players for the 2026 Candidates and a potential challenge for the world crown. The European Individual will be the very last event covered by the department for culture, media and sport £500,000 grant for elite chess before it is abolished on 31 March as part of government cuts. This is a huge blow for the English Chess Federation and its many rising young talents of both sexes. England's delegation in Romania will be led by GM Shreyas Royal, 16, fresh from his good result at the World Junior Championship. IMs Jonah Willow and Yang-Fan Zhou are targeting GM norms, FMs Sohum Lohia and Koby Kalavannan IM norms. 3963: 1 Nxf7+ Kg8 2 Nh6+ Kh8 3 Rf8+! Qxf8 4 Bxg7+! Qxg7 5 Qd8+ and mates.
