Just to show how far the reach of my e-mailing goes, I just received a
reply from Grandmaster Pal Benko in Hungary, the real grandmaster, not
an actor playing him in the movies.

Benko says that he did not compose this endgame and never would, as it
has several flaws.

I apologize to Benko. I should have realized immediately that this was
not a Benko problem. In the first place, it is standard in problems
and endgame studies that the first move is never a check or a capture.
There are some exceptions, but certainly not like this one where
almost all the pieces are traded off from the first move.

Next, the position is unrealistic. White's last move was Ke6. However,
instead he could have played Pawn f6xg7 winning immediately.

Also, the problem is cooked. "I have never made an endgame like that,
just putting up pieces to trade them. Even at the end, instead of 7.
Kxe5, 7.h5 draws. Matter of fact, I suggested something else but It
was found too complicated."

So, the original information given to me by Taghian Taghian, which was
that this endgame was composed in part by Bruce Pandolfini (the real
Bruce Pandolfini, not an actor playing him in the movies) was probably
correct.

Sam Sloan


On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 03:34:15 GMT, (Sam Sloan)
wrote:

I tried to figure out which moves came next but it is apparent that
the next bunch of moves are just random moves or more likely were
edited in out of sequence. Eventually, they reach the following
problem-like position: White has a king on e6, rook on e5, knight on
e4, bishop on g5 and pawns on f6 and h4. Black has rook on c8, bishop
on d8, knight on b6, king on c2 and pawns on a7 and g7.

This looks like a problem created by Grandmaster Pal Benko, but
Taghian Taghian told me that Bruce Pandolfini and another chess player
worked it out. Pal Benko was a consultant to this movie, however. The
last move by White was Kd5. It is now Black to play and win. It is a
cute solution. I do not know how difficult it is, because I know the
solution already, since I had to work backwards from the final
position to get to this position. It is almost ridiculous to suggest
that any seven year old child could find over the board the solution
to this problem which was perhaps composed by Grandmaster Pal Benko.

OK Ready? The solution is: 1. ... gxf6 2. Bxf6 Rc6+ 3. Kf5 Rxf6 4.
Nxf6 Bxf6 5. Kxf6 Nd7+ 6. Kf5 Nxe5+ 7. Kxe5 a5 8. h5 a4 9. h6 a3 10.
h7 a2 11. h8=Q a1=Q+ 12. Kf5 Qxh8 White resigns 0-1

By the way, it took me about an hour of playing back and replaying
this video before I got all the pieces in their correct positions and
all the moves right too.

The point is that White has queened his pawn first but Black queens
with check on the long diagonal and wins White's queen. A cute and
unusual solution to an endgame study.

By the way, in real life the game ended in a draw.

Sam Sloan