Chess on TV, are the producers idiots?

"?!" Means dubious move.  Glad I could clear this up for you.

I just hope they set up those endgame positions you love so well correctly.

That Columbo episode cracked me up. The first time I saw it, I didn't see anything untoward (few years back). Now, though, I got a right giggle out of it. Thanks! ;)

Even worse is describing football coaches as chess players.

Good point, I guess what really bugs me is the fact that they get it so wrong, its ok to dumb it down a bit but why not at least get it right like they do with the Physics in The Big Bang Theory. If they can make a hit comedy around Physics & get it right why not at least get the Chess moves right?

In my tournament playing days I saw enough strange & funny stuff to make at least a couple of episodes of a Chess Comedy. It ranged from fist fights outside the venue to a hot & steamy affair between a player & his opponents wife & even an assault charge after a player waited in the hallway with a piece of wood & hit his opponent over the head with it. I was at one tournament where a player arrived on a Harley wearing his outlaw bike club colors & placed 2nd outright at the end of the weekend. So while the public perception of Chess may be that it's boring that's not always the case.

This video is hilarious, it shows George Costanza from Seinfeld playing chess:

It's been a while since I've seen the episode, but isn't the response "Queen to King's level 1?"

Ding ding ding ding ding.

That is the correct response.  Good work.

In the third season episode of Star Trek, "Whom Gods Destroy," Lord Garth is capable of changing into any form he wishes, and he assumes the form of Captain Kirk.  He attempts to have Scotty beam him aboard the Enterprise so he can take it over.  But Garth doesn't know the proper code-word response when Scotty, asks him, "Queen to Queen's Level 3."

Later, Garth has this conversation with Kirk:

Garth:  By the way, I assume you play chess?
Kirk:  Occasionally.
Garth:  So do I.  How would you respond to "Queen to Queen's Level 3?
Kirk:  I'm sure you're aware that there are an infinite number of counter-moves.
Garth:  I'm interested in only one.
Kirk:  I can't for the life of me imagine which one.

An infinite number of counter-moves??  Give me a break.  There's not even an infinite number of games or positions, let alone moves.  As far as moves go, there's just a small number, and this would be the case for any chess variant, even 3-D chess as seen on Star Trek.

Did anybody else see these episodes?

I saw the episode with Reid playing as a kid in the park but the only Chess I remember on the plane was with Gideon & he always lost. There are at least 2 episodes featuring Chess on the plane, 1 on the way to Gitmo to interview a terrorist, the other he gave up & Gidedon asked Prentiss if she played & she took over. I also remember Morgan telling Reid he had to learn to think outside the box in order to beat Gideon, interesting advice from a non player & an interesting concept in Chess.

I remember I watched a movie like 7 years ago, I do not remember the name.

But the fact is that 2 boys (the good guy and the bad guy) super gifted in chess were playing a very important match. They both had just a king and a pawn. The bad boy promotes his pawn and in a very proud way says "Queen". But then immediately the good boy also promotes his pawn, and at the same time makes check, and when the bad boy moves the king, then the good boy takes his opponent's queen.

The funny thing, is that even a 300 ELO player would see that coming, and the bad guy (who is apparenly a chess genious) did not see it coming and made such a shocked face when he saw it...hahahaha it was really hilarious.

There were anyway a lot of ilogical things in that movie.

Are you talking about the final game in Searching for Bobby Fischer?  

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/the-last-moves-in-the-final-game-in-searching-for-bobby-fischer

Those final moves were written by the real life Josh Waitzkin and Bruce Pandolfini.

Exactly, that was the film.

The funny thing for me is how shocked looks the boy when he realizes that he is in check, and will lose the queen and the game.

Any decent chess player (let alone chess masters) would have seen that coming many moves before.

Here's an interesting one: In an episode of Through the Wormhole I was watching, the scene was talking about how chess was something that a parent taught her child, and how she hoped it would be passed down someday. Oh, really now?

1. The board had the classic problem of having a dark square in the lower right corner, not too bad.

2. Here's the annoying one: THE PEICES WERE ON THE WRONG SIDES! The black pieces were on ranks 1 and 2 and he white army was on ranks 7 and 8. How I know this is that the moves were being said in the background: for example, a black pawn went to "g4" from it's starting square. I think it may have even been the b-pawn as well!

Ok,

Most of that combination was forced, and it was 12 moves long like they say in the movie:

Hahahhaha, yes, i saw that also. Super annoying. They have massive amounts of people working in the Production, and massive budgets, but it doesn't cross anybody's mind, to check the facts straight, maby calling some to some chess expert. No, no who has the time for that. lol

Isn't grunfeld played for 1.d4? ruylopez starts with 1.e4

Exactly, if I could find a way to play the Grunfeld defence against the Ruy Lopez I might be the next Bobby Fischer, it would certainly surprise a few opponents anyway!