There will be no Best of/Worst of list this year, for the simple but compelling reason that I don’t feel like making one. Instead, we’ll go straight to the usual detective series — Banacek, in this case. This time, our suave Polish-American detective is trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of an enormous, three-ton stone statue. It’s harder than it sounds.1 So hard, in fact, that Banacek goes to visit Mulholland, the same friend he met when we talked about him before. And said friend is playing chess again.
The woman he’s playing against is wholly irrelevant. I don’t think she says a single word. Surprisingly, the game they’re playing is also irrelevant, because we don’t get a good enough shot. However, some fifteen minutes after this scene, we see the same two people at work again and this time there’s a much better shot.
I’m still not completely confident in my reconstruction:2
for example, it really looks like the bishop is on g8 instead of f8, but that idea is just too horrid to contemplate. Also, the board is actually rotated a quarter turn, but I have corrected that so often it has become second nature. White has just taken a pawn on c5. That’s a pretty idiotic move, and I thought for a brief moment that perhaps it would be evidence that the bishop was on g8 after all, but I quickly realised the problem is not hanging the rook. It’s allowing mate in 2 with Qa6+.
Mulholland seems rather taken aback by Rxc5. While he’s double checking that this really was an astronomically stupid move, Banacek calls. And this leads us to the real mystery: is Mulholland looking miffed because his opponent plays so badly, because Banacek calls, or because the director gave him a so much sillier position than before?
Realism: 2/5 I think a two is the grade I give most often.3 Possibly because I very often get positions like this, where every piece is on a sort of normal square but the position is just complete nonsense.
Probable winner: Black, unless his time runs out because Banacek keeps calling. But that probably doesn’t happen, because the good detective is soon of again to locate a statue.
1. [The task, not the statue. That is about as hard as you’d expect an enormous slab of stone to be.] ↩
2. [Perhaps I can’t help you find a statue, but I can find you an excellent diagram editor.] ↩
3. [I think I might also have remarked that before.] ↩