12 June 2009

Gumby Plays Battle Chess

Stop action chess videos are a dime a dozen, but this one is different. It took some time to make.


Most unusual chess game (1:55) • 'Make women laugh and fall in love. Secrets of attracting women with humor. Results guaranteed.'

I didn't invent that description, that's what it says. Makes me wonder if the clip wasn't 'borrowed' to sell the book: Make Women Laugh - Attract Beautiful Women Using Humor. At first glance I thought the game was a Marshall Gambit...

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.Qe2 b5 6.Bb3 Be7 7.c3 O-O 8.O-O d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nf4 11.Qe4 Nxe5 12.Qxa8 Qd3 13.Bd1 Bh3 14.Qxa6 Bxg2 15.Re1 Qf3 16.Bxf3 Nxf3#

...until I noticed 5.Qe2.

***

Later: In a comment, Tom Chivers informed, 'The game's from 2001 A Space Odyssey I seem to recall (we featured it a while back!).' A search on his blog located the post at Best Chess Video Ever?, which in turn located the original video at scacchi clay stop motion - chess clay stop motion (548,565 views, 1610 comments). The description there gives more information about the clip.

claymation of the chess game Roesch - Willi Schlage (Hamburg, 1910). The position after 13...Bh3, and the ones that follow, were used in Stanley Kubrick's movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" for the game between Frank Poole and the HAL-9000 Super Computer. • Music by Edward Grieg : In the Hall of the Mountain King.

I'll add this post to Category:Gaffes, because I should have been more alert to the discrepancy between the video content and its description. At the time I wrote the post I considered searching for the original clip, but couldn't think of an efficient way to do it.

Why would someone use a chess video to promote a book about picking up women? Maybe I should add it to Category:Mysteries as well. Done!

3 comments:

Tom Chivers said...

The game's from 2001 A Space Odyssey I seem to recall (we featured it a while back!)

Mark Weeks said...

Thanks, found it! - Mark

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