Chess in the Trailer for "007 - First Light"

Sony released the first trailer for a new upcoming game "007 - First Light" during the State of Play showcase on June 4th.  This game incorporates an independent story centered around a very young James Bond and his entrance into the British intelligence service MI6.  The trailer shows various settings where we can expect to see in the game including a dramatic chess match.

Let's find out how accurate the chess depictions are in these few seconds of footage.

Shot 1

This is a very pretty scene.  Two chess players sit dramatically on an elevated platform in the middle of a hall.  There are displays on both sides showing player info and a chess position, and the chess positions do indeed match.  We get some additional information about the players and the tournament from the displays.  The players at the board are the fictional characters Gretchen Wong of the United States playing against Aleksander Nyvik of Sweden.  White's classical rating is 2609, and Black's is 2835.  So Nyvik's insanely high rating and his country of origin are directly inspired from Magnus Carlsen.

This is the finals for the Open Section, and the players are tied 1.0-1.0 in the tiebreaks.  The clock times listed are 25:32 for White to 22:28 for Black.  The time control for this tiebreak is 25|10.  Last, we see we are on move 9 with the timer for the current move being 25 seconds.  The only thing missing here is that it is not clear whose move it is; displays in chess matches show the most recent move.

Against my expectations, this depiction is quite solid!  This chess position is indeed theory.  Even better, this position does occur at move 9 after Black's play.

The Chess.com database shows 10 games which reached this position including one game where Magnus played Black.

Up to this point, this is one of the most accurate depictions of a chess match in mainstream entertainment.  Even though Black is playing a little slowly, the clock times are reasonable.  Classical chess ratings are listed even though this is Rapid because we can see on the display that the players are in tiebreaks and therefore must be using a faster time control.  The ratings are what we would expect from Grandmasters.  Of course, Black has a significant rating edge as does Magnus in every matchup.  The audience seating is questionable, however.  Almost no modern event will have the audience encircle the players (although this seating does make the overall picture more striking).  How about those people sitting directly in front of the windows?  Are they even able to see anything?

There is one very small stain on this otherwise perfect scene: if you look very closely, you will notice that the chessboard is not even there!  But this can be forgiven considering all the other merits of this scene.

For such a slam dunk depiction, it's a shame what happens next.

Shot 2

The next shot shows White dramatically moving the King to c3 on... the Kingside?  How did it get over there?  Okay, so technically this can be a different game than the previous shot.  But something just seems strange...

Shot 3

The last shot is Black (with a martini glass by the table) grabbing the queen and seemingly going to place it on b2. 

And yes, for all the perfections made in the opening shot, one of the most basic mistakes is made: the chessboard is oriented incorrectly!  The bottom left and top right squares should be dark squares.  But we can clearly see this is not the case in this cinematic.

Additionally, the captured pieces in both Shot 2 and Shot 3 are on the incorrect side.  When Black captures a White piece, he would put a White piece by his side - not a Black piece.  I previously identified this same mistake in the television show Stranger Things.

Finally, let's talk about the position itself.  Again, this could be a separate game compared to Shot 1, but this position is still ridiculous.  Here is the position with Black to move:

White has both a rook and a bishop hanging in this horrendous position.  Black is clearly winning.  Why did White move her King?  There are clearly bigger threats to address.  Note how  the White rook on a6 and the White bishop on h1 are trapped.  In order for these both to have been under attack like this, White had to have left one piece or both pieces hanging for several consecutive moves.  And then why did Black move his Queen along that diagonal?  He can clearly begin cashing in on his advantage by capturing either of the hanging pieces. 

Maybe we should deduct one or two thousand points from these players' ratings...

So another piece of entertainment falls to the same mistakes.  I imagine game developers either play chess or know someone who does, and this make me surprised that these mistakes were made in the first place.  But hey - I enjoy scrutinizing chess details so keep them coming!

I long for the day the chessboard can finally be set up correctly.