Chess has had the MasterChef treatment with BBC Two's Chess Masters – but will it work?

Cue BBC Two’s Chess Masters: the Endgame, complete with ominous music, expert commentators talking us through moves in hushed, awed tones, host Sue Perkins’s jolly intelligence, contestants drawn in cartoon colours (including my favourite, The Swashbuckler, who sadly buckled early), all on obligatory journeys.

A game of stillness and quietness has been given high-octane TV energy. After 1,500 years, the world’s most popular board game has yielded to “the MasterChef treatment”.

But will it work? Everyone’s very smiley-smart and I do like the clocks timing each move – a neat device one friend suggests we should take to the pub to “help police our talk/listen ratios” – but I admit to having a little nap once the actual game begins. Until one commentator shrieks, “It’s checkmate in one! But has he seen it?” and I find myself hitting pause, squinting to spot the solution.

I feel triumphant until someone points out this would never happen in real-life chess – it means the vanquished has overexposed his flank (nope, me neither) and, anyway, etiquette would demand he resign. But, you know, telly…

You can see why the programme-makers would land here. Simple and yet fiendishly complicated, with 400 outcomes from 20 possible opening moves alone. The number of potential positions throughout one game is 10 plus 45 zeroes. Those who conquer this parallel universe remain superstars for decades, whether it’s Kasparov playing a human called Karpov or a machine called Deep Blue.

Meanwhile, more ordinary players have often had a bad rap. One enthusiast on the Timeshift documentary How to Win at Chess, recently shown on BBC Four, said, “I belong to clubs where I thought to myself, ‘Are there any normal people here?’” But as we all now know, the geeks have inherited the earth.

If chess is having quite the moment on our screens, much credit must go to the flawless The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, one of the great consolations of lockdown. Through Anya Taylor-Joy’s Beth and her journey from orphan to world chess champion, we cared about Réti openings and whether she should play the Sicilian Defence. Her match-mapping on the ceiling was thrilling, her victory glorious.

Fictional Beth was clearly inspired by the even more dramatic true story of Bobby Fischer, the gawky American who, in 1972, took on Russian Boris Spassky for the world title. As the hype of the time would have it, Fischer wasn’t just playing for himself, but for the West and world peace generally.

But the Queen’s Gambit drama and any Bobby Fischer documentary reveal the problem. Their stories are told through music, news footage, the players’ eyes, the falling king, the handshake proffered. There is not much actual chess, not because it would be boring, but because it would make no sense. While the game clearly draws extraordinary people, the play itself at such high level is inaccessible to us mortals.

And that is as it should be. It feels good knowing that some people out there are capable of operating at a different level to the rest of us. The Caped Crusader, Dr Gregory House, Endeavour Morse, Nigel Short – they all toil so we don’t have to. In a world of chaos, it’s a comfort. So yes, democratise your cooking, your knitting, your pottery, whatever else you fancy. But please, let’s leave this one to the masters.

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