‘Chess Masters’ comes to TV

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(Newcastle Chronicle, 14 March 2025)

This Monday, a new half-hour TV show called “Chess Masters: The Endgame” aired on BBC2 with Sue Perkins, and it’s getting a wide range of reactions.


The format is a light-hearted mix between “Bake Off,” “Only Connect” and a knockout chess tournament, and is designed to draw in viewers who don’t know much about the game. Twelve participants are assigned to two qualifying groups of six players each, and a mix of rapidplay games and visualisation puzzles are used to eliminate one competitor every week. The top two players from each group then go through to the semi-finals stage.

Despite the title, the competition does not include any masters. In this, it differs from “The Master Game”, a popular BBC show in the 1970s and 80s, which featured strong grandmasters, giving their thoughts on their moves in voiceovers. In the new show, players of average club strength have been chosen to reflect diverse demographics, with most young adults (there are no senior citizens or child prodigies in sight).

Players are given nicknames such as “The Killer Queen” and “The Unruly Knight”. Three-time British champion David Howell and Anthony Maturin, a chess coach who appeared recently on “The Traitors,” are on hand to explain the chess and offer encouragement.

The commentary is also different to what chess players are used to viewing on Twitch, YouTube and Chess.com. Mixed in with relatively advanced concepts such as back-rank checkmate and controlling the centre are the mechanics of how the knight moves, checkmate and castling.

TV reviewers so far have ranged from very enthusiastic to somewhat disappointed. “Could the BBC succeed in making chess sexy? Not quite but they did make it pretty darned exciting,” wrote Michael Hogan in The Telegraph, describing the show as “quietly compelling and full of chequered charm.”

Carol Midgeley in The Times said it was inevitable that chess “had to wear reality TV clothing, with the old ‘one of you will leave the competition today’ shtick in place to create tension”. But she added it had “a wholesome nerdy charm that is seductive.”

The most negative review came from Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, who described the programme as “thin, tired and scared.” She wrote: “[It] could have been gentle and charming if somebody involved had had some faith in the game, in the potential for people to be interested in explanations of its finer points or allowed Sue Perkins off the leash a bit to make more jokes”.

“Chess Masters: The Endgame” can be viewed at 8:00 pm on Mondays on BBC2 or watched on the iPlayer.

PUZZLES

Puzzle A: King-Conquest, 1985. White to move.

Puzzle B: Gara-Wall, 2025. Black to move.

Puzzle C: Pert-Ganguly, 2001. White to move.

Puzzle D: Keene-Miles, 1975. White to move.

ANSWERS:

A: 1 Nf6+! Qxf6 2 Qxf6 wins. (If 1…Kh8 2 Qxh5+ leads to mate)
B: 1…Bc2! 2 Qxc2 Ne5 3 Bc4 Nxf3+ 4 gxf3 Qh2+ 5 Kf1 dxe3 6 Nc3 e2+! 7 Nxe2 Qxh3+ 8 Kg1 Bh2+ 0-1. If 9 Kh1 Bg3+ 10 Kg1 Qh2+ 11 Kf1 Qxf2 mate.
C: 1 Ng5+! Rxg5 2 Qf7+ Kh6 3 Qxf6+ Kh7 4 Qf6+ Kh7 5 Qf7+ Kh6 6 Rxe6+ wins.
D: 1 Qb1! Ne5 2 dxe5 Ne4 3 Nxe4 Kh7 4 Nf6+! Bxf6 5 Qxg6+ Kh8 6 Bg7+1-0.