Over two years ago I first discussed an episode from one of the many, many CSI series. Back then, I had quite a lot to discuss, because there was a big tournament in town and a serial killer who played moves by carefully placing his victims. Today, I again have quite a lot to discuss, but the reason is far less clear. In fact, for the first twenty minutes or so, there is no chess at all. The crime scene investigation people are just trying to figure out why someone sat on a park bench with a severed head, someone was killed during an Italian festival, and a kid turned up burned to a crisp.1
At first, they are puzzled that the boy didn’t escape the blaze, but then they find a perfectly logical theory: he was playing chess online and was so entranced by the game he didn’t notice the smoke and fire. The interface he’s using seems rather inconvenient, but it’s clear enough what his position was:2
Well, that doesn’t seem too unreasonable. The underdeveloped white pieces, as well as his somewhat unusual pawn structure, can be explained by inexperience. The knight on c6 blocking the black c-pawn is not even abnormal, really. But the kings’ positions are suspicious. Indeed, I have the frightful hunch that black has castled queen’s side by putting his on b8 and the rook on c8 or, slightly less gruesome but more likely, they started with the kings on the d-file.
The investigators go interview some teenager whose chessboard was found in the burned house. It turns out that he had been beaten by the kid some time ago — and not in a very dignified fashion. This is the whole game: 1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e5 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. Nf3 O-O 5. Nxe5 d5 6. Nxd5 Nxd5 7. Bxd5 c6 8. Bxf7+ Kh8 9. Qh5 Nd7 10. Ng6#. That’s a painful defeat but, if anything, it’s a reason to kill yourself rather than your opponent.
So they’re on to the following suspect: the dead kid’s mother’s boyfriend. He happens to be playing chess in the park with his daughter. Again we get to see the board quite clearly. The opening is quite standard: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 but here black plays e5, and that leaves his daughter a bit puzzled. She’s still quite young, so she can be forgiving for not knowing the intricacies of the Löwenthal variation. Especially if, as a close-up shows, her e-pawn is suddenly on e3 and her g-pawn on g3.
But it gets worse! They manage to get the laptop of the boy’s opponent and manage to recover the game he had been playing. Black seems to have started, and then the following sequence arose: 1… d5 2. Nf3 c5 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nb3 Nf6 6. h4 Nc6 7. Bg5 h6 8. Bxf6
Qxf6 9. Qxd5 Be6 10. Qf3 Nb4 11. Na3 Bxb3 12. axb3 Rd8 13. c3 a5 14. cxb4 Bxb4+ and now there is a jarring cut to the position above — but with reversed colours! I think they somehow got the idea in their heads that online chess servers show your pieces as white and your opponents’ pieces as black.
Perhaps they should leave the crime scenes alone and investigate lichess.
Realism: 3/5 The most unlikely — in fact: impossible — thing happens of screen: the jump from the second game to the third. However, it’s not impossible that the boy just played two games. It would not be unreasonable to resign after 14. … Bxb4+.
Probable winner: One was clearly won by white and one was clearly won by black, but for the third one it’s hard to say. White has some space advantage, but it’s not much to speak of and there’s a certain risk of over extension. Perhaps it’ll be a draw.
1. [The series is obviously set in the USA, so I guess he’s actually burned to a chips.] ↩
2. [My position is that this is the best diagram editor around.] ↩