The symbolism of those moves has to do with the character. Would YOU go to work for a large corporation, spy on then, and hack them while taking drugs?
The move doesn't make any chess sence, but maybe later in the season, they'll have another game where Elliot BEATS Mr Robot.
Chess Games in TV Show Mr. Robot
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This thread reminds me of just about every gymnast show ever made. They're supposed to be elite athletes, at the top of their sport. But they're doing amateur level flips and jumps. Because the actors are people who weren't good enough for the Olympics. They can't act their way into doing a Produnova.
Chess is similar. It's just a show for entertainment. If you're really into that one aspect, you'll notice the flaws. But to the average viewer, they won't have a clue. It would just take someone really invested in chess to pick the right games. Sure they could hire an expert, but what's the point when 90% of their audience won't be able to tell the difference?
Well THAT'S a stupid game Thanks for posting that BTW.
Was this week's episode about Elliot being in jail in an orange jumpsuit?
So how about season 2 episode 7 Elliot Vs Ray? I can't make heads or tails of this game. Or the relevance to Lasker quote? Its a let down in real life and in chess when your adversary walks out on a game, or prematurely resigns - but i must have been missing something?
Wrt the cooperative stalemates, I thought it was brilliant. You guys have to realize that Elliott is playing himself in a hallucination. Of course the moves don't make sense. Elliott and Mr. Robot have to coexist. They are playing together to assure stalemate because it is in their mutual self interest...neither one wants to lose, but if one loses the other they will both cease to exist. Playing these games out like this shows that they know this and trust each other not to break their bond.
The games vs Ray both feature queen sacrifices that lead to forced checkmate. The game where Ray wins is a classic that most experienced players would recognize and avoid if playing Elliott's side. Since he is new to chess he doesn't know this and quickly loses. The rematch where Elliott wins shows that Ray thinks he can just gobble material but Elliott has improved dramatically. The Lasker quote is a staple of chess and Elliott finds 15...Qf3! which forces mate. His Q is hanging but Ray knows he can't take it. I'm not sure if this is a historic game or just a good example of Elliott turning the tables on Ray.
Taken together it shows that Elliott can play just fine if he's playing to win. But he can't play to win against his alter-ego Mr. Robot. Doing so would risk his undoing.
Mealimo wrote:
I think most people in this thread are missing the significance of the scene (though if you don't watch the show that's to be expected, but I'll be directing this to people who do since it'd be tedious and spoiler heavy to explain all of the context).
If you look at Tidesson's comment above you'll see that the first two games are a composition of the shortest stalemate. In order for this position to arise in only ten moves both players would have to consciously attempt to reach a stalemate as quickly as possible.
In the context of the show this means that Elliot and Mr. Robot (since they're the same person) are actually cooperating in order to resolve their conflict, the solution being to recognize that they are complimentary elements of the same person. The significance of black being stalemated in these games is to illustrate that Mr. Robot (the darker, more active, less compassionate, etc. part of Elliot's psyche who is the force behind fsociety) is locked up as long as Elliot insists upon fighting him rather than their real enemies.
The third game is the shortest mutual stalemate. The point of this game is that Elliot also can't make any moves to achieve his ends in the real world as long as he's fighting this internal battle against himself.
I think this is pretty illustrative of Elliot's plotline in the second season. Elliot thinks he has to engage in a battle with Mr. Robot in order to keep him from taking over and doing things Elliot doesn't want, while, I think, several things are quite apparent to the viewer about Elliot's struggle with Mr. Robot.
First, that Mr. Robot is the part of Elliot that actually began the whole hacker plot, which the Elliot personality was fully willing to engage in, but was too much of "a zero" (to use Mr. Robot's phrasing) to initiate. Second, that even though he thinks he has to fight Mr. Robot in order to keep himself in control, the only thing he's actually doing is stalemating himself (as evidenced in how he doesn't do anything to affect the main plotline until after the chess game epiphany).
Even though Elliot doesn't realize it, by viewing Mr. Robot as an antagonist and experiencing his play as trying to win, he is beginning to understand that Mr. Robot is a part of him who helps him affect the changes in the world that he wants to see. In spite of the appearance of an antagonistic relationship they have always been acting cooperatively to achieve the same ends, though Elliot dissociates himself from the rage and trauma that caused him to begin down that path in the first place.
The point isn't that Elliot can't beat Mr. Robot, but that he doesn't actually want to, it's just that the part of his personality that he identifies as himself (i.e. doesn't dissociate from) hasn't come to terms with the fact that they're both parts of a broader person, as well as the traumatic experiences that caused him to dissociate in the first place and the experiences which have fueled and shaped the Mr. Robot personality.
Interesting analysis. Im a fan of the show and the chess games made me swear at my TV out of anger and bafflement. Happy to hear there apparently is some logic behind the whole thing... :)
Sep 18, 2016
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#30
I really liked the first 5-10 episodes of the first season. The Fight Club-esque his father is not real was kind of obvious and almost a blatant rip off. I was a bit disappointed in that.
This blew my mind.
I heard an interview with Elliot recently and they said every character on the show is not real. It's just another voice in Elliot's head.
HEADS UP! RED ALERT!
Mr ROBOT SEASON 2 FINALE--TONIGHT
The movie "The Queen of Katwe" will be released later this week. I wonder how the chess games will fare in that one.?
I was mad about that at first but on newer episodes they corrected this and you can see them play a ruy lopez
Did anyone notice the first game is not even stalemate? Black still has several legal moves, namely f5 and several legal moves by the queen.
Rami Malek is set to play Freddie Mercury in the film biopic of the band "Queen" 
https://www.yahoo.com/music/queen-biopic-apos-bohemian-rhapsody-154000174.html
No, they shouldn't have had artificial moves that noone would ever play period.