I've watched reruns of this show for hours, and always just assumed it was early cgi. This blew my mind, so I had to share-

Added to this intensive, unorthodox production method were the ground-breaking animated board and pieces created by designer John Bone and the technicians at BBC Bristol. This effect was achieved using a glass chess table on which the moves were made by a cloaked and gloved player. The piece symbols seen on-screen were actually on the underside of the pieces themselves, which were filmed from beneath in reflection, to correct for the left/right reversal that resulted. In addition to this, the expert commentator could use an 'electronic pointer', illuminating the squares to graphically indicate the ideas being discussed. The effect that combining all of these elements produced had never been previously achieved and is remarkably similar to a high quality, digitally produced, modern multimedia chess presentation, yet was created using only puppetry techniques, fairy lights, mirrors and much editing. (http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/bbcs-the-master-game-on-youtube)

What really blew my mind was that all of the videos were "broken" due to copyright infringement.

Seems like a good series to watch though!

People were able to do all sorts of amazing things before computers dulled our senses 

Wow that's utterly rediculous! Where did they all go? Just a month ago they were all on youtube and now I can't find a single episode. What possible interest does the BBC (or whoever bought the copyright from them) have in stopping people from watching a show they cancelled 30 years ago?

ridiculous*

irritatingly pedantic*

i dont know if i remember correctly, i think uplpader  had trouble with a guy who didnt believe in darwin and called on youtube to remove his videos.

or maybe it was a guy who believe in a hoax that got uncovered called on youtube... something like that i think