Your move: Match your chess, movie knowledge

Todd Bardwick, Special to the News

Monday, February 6, 2006

Chess has played a significant role in movies and in the lives of actors over the past century.

Try this test of your chess movie knowledge:

1. What famous 1963 movie opened with a chess position from a game played in 1960 between Boris Spassky and David Bronstein?

2. In the same movie, what reason did Spassky give as to why two white pawns were purposely omitted from d4 and c5 in the movie version of the real-life game?

3.What 2000 movie, based a book by Vladimir Nabokov, starred John Turturro?

4. Name the actor who became an expert level chess player in his youth and took on all comers for a dime a game at a chess stall on Coney Island, and in 1999, was named the greatest film legend of all time by the American Film Institute.

5. In the Lord of the Rings, which main actor fancied himself a good chess player, but kept losing on the set to his scale double?

6. In the boxing scene in Ocean's Eleven, name the two heavyweight fighters, who are both chess enthusiasts.

7. In the 1996 movie Independence Day who portrayed the father and son characters who were introduced playing chess in the park?

8. Who was Hollywood's strongest chess player (Clue: A famous movie director)?

9. What actor from the television series, Saved by the Bell, produced an introductory chess video with 1995 Colorado State Champion, David Gliksman?

10. In the wizard's chess scene with the giant stone chess pieces in the 2001 movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, what serious chess error was made when the movie was edited?

11. What piece did Hermione play in the chess game in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone?

12. In the 1994 movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, what real-life chess player was incorrectly portrayed as a grandmaster in Washington Square Park?

13. In Searching for Bobby Fischer, famous chess teacher Bruce Pandolfini was portrayed by Ben Kingsley. The real Bruce Pandolfini made a cameo appearance in the one of the scenes in the park. What did he say to Kingsley?

14. In the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, what did HAL say to Frank after beating him at chess?

15. What is the name of the 1975 Gene Hackman movie where the diagrammed position occurred? (Clue: Solving the chess position with black to move and mate in four suggests the name of the movie.)

Answers

1. The James Bond movie From Russia with Love

2. The movie producers were afraid they would be sued if they used the actual chess position. It is widely known today that you cannot copyright chess positions.

3. The Luzhin Defense

4. Humphrey Bogart

5. Sean Austin (Sam)

6. Lennox Lewis and Vladimir Klitschko

7. Judd Hirsch and Jeff Goldblum

8. Stanley Kubrick

9. Dustin Diamond

10. When Harry (a bishop) moves to c5 and announces checkmate, it isn't checkmate. The white queen can interpose on e3.

11. The black rook that started the game on a8.

12. International Master Kamran Shirazi

13. "Young Fischer."

14. "Thank you for a very enjoyable game."

15. Solution: 1 . . . Qxh2+! 2.Kxh2 Ng4+ 3.Kg1 Nh3+ 4.Kf1 Nh2 mate - from Knight Moves