COUNTERING CHECK WITH A CHECKMATE

If you want to use the knight in an interesting and realistic checkmate where the knight gives the mate, perhaps look into smothered mates.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smothered_mate

In most chess games between reasonably strong players, the game ends by a resignation or ends in a draw.  It's very rare, at high levels, for it to go all the way to checkmate.  For examples, see http://www.anand-topalov.com/

That is the website for the most recent World Championship.  2 million euros in prize money, 60% to the winner, 40% to the loser.  The winner has other benefits, also, so this is clearly serious chess.  Every game that was not drawn ended with a resignation.  I suspect that every game that ended in a draw was drawn by mutual agreement.

The nature of the beast is that before checkmate occurs, both players can see that checkmate is inevitable, so the losing player simply resigns instead of playing it out.

You might consider having one player resign a few moves before the mate, and having someone who is watching ask "Why did he resign", to show how the mate would play out if the game had continued.

It sounds like you need to find a local chess player to help you out with your project.

lol.

Set up the board with a black square at h1, and reverse the starting positions for knights/bishops.   :)

/please don't do this.

Ok, here is a position from a game Zuta - Suety (1953)

I dont have the game score, only the final moves.

I think this will play well, Black has an advantage, in material, and at first glance positionally. But White has a combination ending with a killer blow by the Knight:

I really like this senario. It pretty much works on all angles. Specially because it looks like black has got the edge right off the bat.

What do you guys think? This strategy actually fooled a grandmaster, did it not? I'm no expert on chess masters, but I assume Zuta and Suety were master players. 

"scenario" is how it's spelt. I personally prefer the philidor's checkmate if you can show a combination of moves.

Basically what you're after is a game where the antagonist appears to be winning (he's up material or threatening to mate the protagonist or whatever), and then your protagonist manages to perform some brilliant tactic involving a Knight that wins the game. Probably taking advantage of some blunder that the antagonist makes late in the game. This appears to fit your plot line.

In the real world, this happens. Because everybody blunders, even top-level chess players. Even Elvis had to clear his throat.

The experts would know better than me what sequence would constitute "brilliant".

Is it totally unrealistic to get out of check with a checkmate? Suppose the check was actually a forced move?

  I'm not sure if any input I could add would be useful.  I don't think I am quite up to the Grandmaster caliber to give you the brilliant position you are looking for.  However, I do like the idea of you using one of those complex mates.

  Unlike some here who have posted that the moves should be pretty simple and obvious, I think a more complex mate that makes others think will help you get your point across better.  Also, it will bury the point you want to make deeper in their minds.  Plus, it makes for some neat movie trivia :)

  I think it is great that you are making a movie about that time period!  There is a lot that we can learn from exploring what happened.  I look forward to when your movie is completed.  Is it going to be available to the public?  If so, then I look forward to seeing it!!!

Thanks for the help guys.

Right now I think the Zuta - Suety 1953 game is the best choice for a few reasons:

1) The white knight is the only knight on the board (symbolic -- survivor)

2) It looks like black has the advantage and white pervails (also symbolic) 

3) The knight doesn't move until the last move which is the killstroke (also symbolic and sentimental)

Aside from that, it should make for ideal visuals as the board will not be cluttered, and will allow us to get unobscured shots of the knight and key pieces. This will also allow viewers to read the board quickly, assume that the villian (black) has the advantage, and then be really surprised.

Thanks agian everyone for the help and support.

After the film debuts at the festivals, I will provide copies for all of you who helped and are interested.

Personally, I like the Milan Vidmar (?) vs. Max Euwe (?) game, especially when considering that black's 32nd move is a check (32...Rc2+) and the 33rd move is threatening mate. I think it blends well with your request.

[Thanks Dragec for posting it]

I think an underpromotion to a knight would be cool. I haven't been able to find a master game but I found this that can serve as an exemple how it might look like

I think the game Rooperi gave would be perfect - usually a smothered mate isn't really difficult to find (probably the players from the games in this thread, including mine, were in time pressure when they missed them), but that combination is a lot tougher to see.

Very interesting. I think a smothered mate by a knight would work as most audience members could tell how there was a checkmate. 

Maybe you could make it "heroic" by doing something like

I just remember that cuendillar made a forum topic with the name "my prettiest loss" with an amazing combination with a underpromotion to a knight, but since his account has been closed beacuase of cheating I can't access the topic anymore. Does anyone know some way to work around that? Maybe the admins could look at it or is it deleted forever?

I think this is at least plausible in real play. That's not so obvious to see, and the knight gives a direct checkmate.

(all the left side of the board, except the queen, is purely decorative).

Try using a smother mate if you want a knight checkmate.

The pattern is this:

Just played this game in live chess, might take a peek. It was a blitz game, so a lot of it was... um... "intuitive."