Chess - The Scotsman 05/10/12

“TODAY is James Bond Day, celebrating the longest-running film franchise in cinematic history, with a daylong series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the first James Bond film, Dr No, in 1962.

In Sean Connery’s second outing as 007, From Russia With Love, in 1963, there’s a famous opening chess scene that introduces us to the cold and calculating Kronsteen, the chief mastermind for the villianous organisation Spectre, just as he’s about to defeat Canadian master McAdams to win the Vienna International Chess Tournament.

For the scene, director Terence Young decided to adapt a prize game from the Soviet Championship of 1960 in Leningrad between Boris Spassky and David Bronstein. And from today’s diagram, after playing 22 Nxe5+, Kronsteen announces “Check” and receives a drink with a coded message, ‘You are required at once’ imprinted on the bottom of the glass. He then quickly finishes off the game after 22 ...Kh7 23 Qe4+ and Black resigned.

The only difference between the two games was that, in the Bond movie, there were no pawns on d4 and c5. This remained a mystery for 40 years, until it was revealed that the legendary Bond producers, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, mistakenly believed there is a copyright on chess games, so they had the pawns removed. But this proved a critical error, because Black could have drawn at the end by perpetual check with 22 ..Ne6! 23 Ng6 Qc5+ 24 Kh1 Qb5! 25 Bc4 Qc6 26 Qf7+ Kh7 27 Qf5 Ng5! forcing a repetition with 28 Nf8+ and Ng6+.

B Spassky – D Bronstein

27th USSR Ch., 1960

King’s Gambit Accepted

1 e4 e5 2 f4 exf4 3 Nf3 d5 4 exd5 Bd6 5 Nc3 Ne7 6 d4 0-0 7 Bd3 Nd7 8 0-0 h6 9 Ne4 Nxd5 10 c4 Ne3 11 Bxe3 fxe3 12 c5 Be7 13 Bc2 Re8 14 Qd3 e2 15 Nd6 Nf8 16 Nxf7 exf1Q+ 17 Rxf1 Bf5 18 Qxf5 Qd7 19 Qf4 Bf6 20 N3e5 Qe7 21 Bb3 Bxe5 22 Nxe5+ Kh7 23 Qe4+ 1-0