The Wizard: Harry Potter Chess Game
Since the reunion of the famous trio and more stars is coming to the TV on New Year's Eve, I thought it would be a great idea to review the famous chess game from the Harry Potter series. If you are a huge Harry Potter fan, you must have remembered this scene. In the first movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, there's actually two chess scenes.
The first one, not so popular, was the one where wizard's chess has been introduced. It was Ron playing against Harry in the hall, while Hermione was calling the game ''barbarian'' since the pieces were not captured but destroyed. Anyways, we did not got much from that game, since it was really short scene but a good one.
After some time, the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione went off, looking for the Philospher's stone. Facing many obstacles, they find themselves on the massive chess board, playing against self moving pieces. They could not cross to the next room until they defeat the self moving pieces. That's when the fun starts. Ron, as the best of them three, decides that Hermione should be the rook, Harry should be the bishop. He decided to be a knight.
The game started, and it was Scandinavian defense. Ron was calling all the enhanced pieces to move, playing very sharp line. The trio played as black in this game. Since Ron was the one making the moves, he sacrficed the queen, and after some time got into the position shown below.
In this moment, after sacrificing a rook to deflect the enemy queen and protect Harry, Ron decided to give a check to the white king himself. This way he sacrificed himself, but his calculations were right. After Qxh3, there's Bc5#. That was Harry's move and he played it, winning the match and moving on in the next room searching for the stone.
Above all, wizard chess is Ron’s game. Elsewhere he is overshadowed and sometimes entirely overlooked, but when faced with a chess board, he knows he’s playing to his strengths. When he steps across the square knowing he will be attacked by a large stone chess piece, he does it so that Harry can checkmate the king. Sure enough, Ron is knocked out with rapid brutality, but his strategising works and Harry and Hermione can move on. Chess gives him an opportunity to shine, and the things it teaches him, strategy, quick thinking and the importance of self-belief, are pretty important lessons.
Fifty points to Ron.
PS: If you want to join my chess club, use the link below. Have fun!
