welcome ladies and gentlemen to what is going to be pretty unique content here on the gotham chess
youtube channel as you all know i cover all things 64 squares and i'm always looking to teach you
something new but today we are going to analyze a movie scene we're taking a look at robert downey
jr's sherlock holmes a game of shadows when he takes on his arch nemesis moriarty on the balcony
scene this game has historical significance it's actually based on a real game between ben larson
who was one of two players feared during the soviet regime and the chess boom except for bobby
fischer and his opponent was tigran petrician who went on to win the world championship
himself now this game was played in 1966 and before we get into the game let's just take a look
at this introductory clip this is directly taken from the movie please don't tell the copywriters
i've muted it no one no one snitch you'll notice the two sit down and moriarty begins the game
so moriarty actually plays the move c4 but what's interesting is that in the actual game itself
the villain is with the black pieces so the hero is playing with white so basically they took
a game from history and they just inverted the colors for the purposes of the movie so hopefully
that's not confusing we're going to pretend like sherlock is playing with the white pieces
so we get e4 c5 this is known as the sicilian defense uh it is both players trying to fight for
the center of the board just one person doing it with the flank pawn bobby fischer himself played
this and this so you got to be on both sides of the equation knight f3 knight c6 and white puts
a second pawn in the center of the board defended by the knight this is known as the open sicilian
when white opens up the board with this central pawn trait black plays g6 and white responds with
bishop to e3 bishop to g7 this version of the sicilian the sicilian has many of these versions
is known as the accelerated dragon sicilian after c4 we have now went even further into the rabbit
hole this handling of the sicilian dragon is known as the maraxi vine spelled m-a-r-o-c-z-y
the point is that you are basically suppressing black's movement in the center with both of your
pawns and the setup that you'd like luke's looks like this you put your knight behind the c pawn
then you will play f3 bishop to e2 and you're going to repel black's forces by virtue of your
pawn fence it's a very popular variation it was played in 1966 and here it is being played
54 years later well i don't know maybe you're watching in 2028 but it's currently 2021. so black
plays knight to g4 now this move you can take but if you were to take your queen now abandons
defense of the d4 square it takes and white comes right back this looks like some sort of glitch
in the matrix but it's not you want to make the knight move and then you're going to play queen to
d2 the queen behind the bishop like this is called a battery and normally in dragon style positions
you'd like to trade that dark squared bishop because if you were to successfully do that uh you
would remove the bishop from the defense mainly of the king and there would be some vulnerabilities
so moriarty responds with d6 sherlock plays bishop to e2 bishop d7 castle's castle so
both players have finished what's known as their development and now we begin the
middle game so in a position like this white has what's called a little bit more space
space in chess is when you control squares on your opponent's side of the board you can do that with
your pawns you can also do that with your long range pieces uh in this particular case it is
white who has a little bit more space centralizes the rook when you are done with castling it's now
time to bring the rooks into the game bishop comes out to c6 and now knight to d5 centralizing you
are more than happy to make this trade because you will attack the knight then maybe you will switch
the play action to the you know open file that you will create there this is what that's called
but in the game we get rookie 8 and now i'll move f4 so this pawn advancement and in general
in chess learning how to play with your pawns is super important uh and in this case what white
wants to do white is not moving this just because if black takes they take back white is doing this
because they have a plan to go f5 since they are supported with their pawn and supported with their
rook they are then going to open the line here for their rook further down the line and have a line
of attack at the king that is how chess is won and lost you have to attack the king you also have to
pick apart the other pieces but do remember these are some of the best players in the world they're
not just going to lose all their pieces like you and me actually just you knight to c7 that was
mean f5 so white continues to attack right white continues mobilizing white doesn't just take take
the person with more space doesn't want to do the trading they want to keep their pressure
black plays knight to a6 looking to rotate the knight back around to c5 to target the center pawn
so of course white takes on g6 because if you were to take me here i'm my queen is hanging but what's
worth more than a queen in chess the king so i would go and attack your king and remember that
rook from a long time ago well now i'm winning because i'm going to win your rook it's going
to be check and then i will save my queen so i'll go material up so knight to c5 white takes black
takes back and now white goes queen f2 white uses a concept known as danger levels lining up again
what's called a battery queen and rook or queen and bishop together on the same file or diagonal
and we're going down to f7 black plays rook f8 there's nothing really else that black can do
at this point white plays e5 now there's a cool variation here that white could have played but
didn't and i wanted to show this to teach you all something white could have played bishop to c5
and if you take back first of all we can take again but white can also play knight to f6
you say levy that's really dumb i just take that yeah but when the knight moved the rook opened up
and sees the queen that's known as a discovered attack and if we were to get takes takes takes
white would say oh look at me i have a queen but black for that queen has a rook and a bishop and
black has what's called compensation because black is going to plant this bishop on d4 defend it with
the pawn and the rook and maybe another pawn and this bishop laser beams the board okay that
bishop square a square on your opponent's side of the board where you cannot be kicked out of
and you exert pressure that's known as an outpost square so clearly ben larson evaluated this ben
larson saw this and said i don't like that instead i'm going to just move my opponent to the middle
if you take me then i'm going to do that attack and also your knight now loses a guard remember
every time you move a pawn it gains you something but also could weaken something it used to protect
so for that reason tigran plays bishop takes e5 and you say why would he do that why would he
voluntarily do this because queen to h4 now what he did there ben larson is he deflected tigran's
bishop out to e5 and now he's going to infiltrate on squares that the bishop used to guard
and then you say well why did tigran even take well if he didn't the pawn was just gonna gobble
everything or keep going so this was just a great move that's how chess works sometimes it's like
well this is terrible this is terrible and this is worse i gotta go with one of the two terrible
options i can't just lose on the spot lesser of two evils or three evils so bishop takes d5
and now rook takes again very good moment why did they take with the rook versus the pawn
because the rook exerts pressure you're pinning the pawn to the queen the pawn is not defending
these pieces so right now white is threatening bishop takes knight because if pawn takes i win
the queen that's why we got knight to e6 and if you take i will take and i will attack your rook
that's why rook f3 this concept is known as a rook lift so white is bringing the rook up and over
to support the queen in its infiltration to h7 there is no need in this position to just get
closer with the queen the queen's not threatening anybody by herself the second you bring the queen
closer black immediately comes back and attacks it the queen is safe now you bring the reinforcements
and then you go that's how it works so rook f3 black plays bishop f6 attacking the queen
now the queen moves black goes back and now we have our movie moment so there was a potential
variation here that could have happened white here plays an absolutely dynamite move
a gorgeous move a move that looks impossible it looks like black has repelled us and now we have
to bring our queen back but it's not so clear okay white plays the move queen takes pawn you say wait
a minute what the pawn just takes the queen now in the game itself which we will look at later
black played knight to f4 you say why wouldn't they just take the queen well in the movie
that's exactly what happens black took the queen i apologize black took the queen and
that is why i'm going to now pull up our clip because at this point i will voice it over so
we don't get copyright struck moriarty says it seems that you've lost your most powerful piece
and sherlock responds a winning strategy sometimes necessitates sacrifice very dramatic right now
sherlock plays and now in the movie it cuts to you know the whole scene that's going on and sherlock
kind of begins showing the point he plays bishop takes knight check now at this point after bishop
takes knight check is played uh moriarty has already gotten up and i will fast forward in that
clip he takes the knight and he says it right here bishop takes knight check and moriarty says ah
the game is over you should go get your shoulder checked out no spoilers but sherlock's shoulder
is pretty messed up at this point in the film and then they they start having a conversation
and they say the moves out loud to each other so moriarty says king to rook two because they're
using the old school notation algebraic notation didn't exist the board didn't have grids and
coordinates and all these things so it says king to rook two and sherlock at this point uh uncorks
a really savage moment in the film uh just a short while later in this dialogue and he says
rook to rook 3 check and this is when he starts going into you know his whole monologue right so
he says rook to rook 3 check and all of a sudden it's like wait a second all of white's pieces are
swarming the king the king has nowhere to go so moriarty has to play bishop to h6 now normally
when you can take a piece with a check or not you take it with the check the problem is
black would just go here and now you have no more checks and once black's queen mobilizes
it's gonna be bad news that's why sherlock stays patient sherlock takes with the bishop
threatening a discovered check on the king frankly bishop takes rook is a mate literally bishop takes
rook is made in one just the way the king is so moriarty snaps off a move himself he plays rook
to f5 sacrificing the rook for the benefit of his position again you normally take with what's
worth less what sherlock takes with the rook pawn takes and now it's not about taking with check
it's about cutting off the king's circulation and we get bishop to f7 now the king can only
go here moriarty plays queen check and what's funny is that in the movie dialogue moriarty
says queen takes knight's pawn but there is no knight's pawn that's just queen to knight six
is the way that would work so queen tonight three so queen takes it and now king to h1 moriarty
takes the pawn on b2 as i can only imagine because actually the dialogue for this move is cut out
and now at the very end once sherlock has uncorked his master plan sherlock says bishop to
bishop eight because that is where the bishop is standing on the home score bishop to bishop eight
discover check and incidentally mate and then you know chaos ensues
so that actually is a beautiful sequence that could have happened from the game and that's
everything that the game is based on except in the movie sherlock is playing with the black pieces
but that is literally the game they found this game and they just flipped the color and they
kind of reenacted it so you know they they talk out this whole sequence and it's all correct
that's the crazy part the queen sacrifice bishop takes knight check king to rook two
rook to rook three check and then bishop takes bishop you know rook to bishop five and then you
know so definitely go re-watch that scene it will make you understand the scene better but
i also promised you that in the game itself this didn't happen which is even more impressive in a
way because think about that that means that the people consulting the show on this chess scene
found a game where what didn't actually transpire could have transpired and was in the it was in
the film not what did happen but what could have happened it just shows you the intricate detail
that some of these amazing films put together in the game itself black played knight to f4 because
black saw this and knight to f4 is designed to sacrifice the knight and then take the queen but
we get bishop check anyway now rook blocks that's the difference in in the game the rook blocks
rook takes f7 against staying patient setting up the discovered attack and now king to h8
and rook to g5 a beautiful game from ben larson just down a queen but the four pieces swarmed
the king's safety b5 was played i mean there's really not much you can do because you can't
even activate your queen because the root covers like for example queen a5 trying to get in here
just rook takes queen so the rook controls all these squares we got b5 rook goes back to g3 not
even taking the pawn drop back go over and rook g3 is where the game ended the only way for black
to survive mate here is to play queen g8 rook h3 block sacrifice your queen but the problem
is that now you are in what's known as a pin and all pinned pieces you should try to put them under
pressure and here white is up a bishop and at this level of the game black would have resigned
but black did resign after rook g3 got played a beautiful beautiful game where ben larson at this
point started this same side attack realizing that he's got peace superiority on this side of
the board he's got all his pieces playing he pawn storms right activates all his pieces makes that
pawn pawn trade and infiltrates with the queen reroutes the queen to the king side rook lifts
and pawn sacrifices makes the right trade night for bishop infiltrates and uh well this queen
takes g6 moment is what that movie is based on but i wanted to make this uh video because i watched
this movie many many years ago and back then there were not a lot of resources i've been a
chess player my whole life there's not been a lot of resources to kind of double check these things
and in many chess scenes in films there's errors the board is set up wrong or in the show the board
is set up on some so i wanted to take a look and uh i was inspired i was inspired by what i saw so
uh hopefully that was fun i've put the game in the description if you'd like to go take a
look on chessgames.com great website with many historical games if you are new to the channel
welcome it's so great to meet you i have a ton of other chess content here for you to enjoy
feel free to do so check out some of my playlists and of course if you are a longer time viewer well
welcome back hopefully you enjoyed this bit of unique content i usually don't put
out things like this but uh that's it for me i'll see you in the next video