The sudden mate

The hero pauses, plays the move, and announces ‘Checkmate!’ The villain crumples in shock. It’s a scene played out countless times on screen, but it so often looks ludicrous. In slow games between skilled players, checkmate on the board is much rarer than resignation. Occasionally, when the denouement is brisk and elegant, it will be played out to a finish. But in those cases, volunteering for the guillotine is a sporting gesture from the vanquished party.

More often, the final phase of a chess game isn’t much of a spectacle. Extra piece, mop up some pawns, promote a pawn, hunt down the king, yadda yadda yadda. There’s no harm in playing it out, particularly if you think your opponent might stumble into a stalemate. But after a while, that phase is all just paperwork — it’s easier to concede defeat and move on.

In younger days I once flattered myself that at least when I was beaten, I would always have the grace to see the checkmate before it arrived. I am no longer so optimistic. After all, the world champion Vladimir Kramnik walked into a mate in one when playing a match against the ‘Deep Fritz’ computer program in 2006. (Back then, man vs machine was not a foregone conclusion).

What is curious is that Kramnik was in no sense under duress — he did not feel tired or hurried, and was calling the shots for most of the game. Among several more examples of grandmasters blundering into mate in one, this apparent lack of danger is a common backstory. Nigel Short once suffered a comparable accident, playing against Maia Chiburdanidze in 1985. The checkmate pattern was banal, but it seemed to come out of nowhere.