According to the review in the St. Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch,
the Game in The Eight is based on a real chess game which was
played in a world championship.Katherine Neville won't tell
people which game it is, but she says she "chose
one that had the most moves in it and tailored the plot to
that game. If you understand chess, you can figure out what
game it is, what grand master played it and in what year."

Neville:
"Clue: it was a game used in international world-champion
level competition, in which a black pawn, protected by a
knight (Solarin) and a rook (Nim) approaches
the queening square, and white concedes."

Was this presented as a an actual game in the novel, or does
she relate the actions of the human characters to the game?

the latter. The main characters "are" chesspieces in the book
(hunting for a set of old,precious metal-chesspieces) and
it slowly turns out, who is who and has which old pieces. E.g. :
"Harry, so _you_ are the black king ?! Ahh, yes, that explains, why ..."
When a piece is captured in the game, the corresponding character
usually dies (murdered) or otherwise quits the "game".

I didn't even figure out that this is all plotted after
a chess-game, when I read it. But I didn't read the whole
book. It's more than 500 pages !



someone now told me Lily's (=ELO 2400) exact comment after
e4,e5,Nf3,Nc6,Bc4,Nf6,Ng5,d5,ed5,Nd5,Nf7

"Once Fiske has moved his King, he can no longer castle it." said Lily,
as if she'd read my mind, " The King will be shoved out on the board and
be scrambling for the rest of the game. He'd be better off to move the
Queen and throw away the Rook."

I'm no native English speaker, but doesn't this look as
if she recommends to reject the sacrifice ??!?