MONK AND THE GENIUS is on USA Tomorrow evening (Friday)!
If you love chess on TV, this episode is filled with realistic chess positions (I hope … you never know what the editor will do!) and intrigue. I was the technical adviser for this episode, so catch the chess extravaganza and let me know if you enjoyed it. – IM J. Silman
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Excellent! My wife and I love this show (and Psych which is after) so we’ll definitely be watching tonight. 🙂
What channel ,day,time in Canada ?
oh come on Silman, you did not have anything to do with that, stop trying to sell more of your books 🙂
the thing is on USA channel today at either 6:00,8:00 or at 9:00
Look like USA Channel is not available in Canada ,I hope someone will put it on Youtube.
…you drank the fizzylifton drink…
you win NOTHING!!!
Too bad the genius chess player was THE BAD GUY. Otherwise excellent episode. I am a big Monk fan.
The episode was fun, as always, but, chesswise, there were a few nagging issues:
– When Julie sits down to play chess against the young GM in the park, she sits behind the black pieces. The GM motions her to go first- and she does. The GM then mocks her something along the lines of “Oh, the Bird Opening, not like “I haven’t seen that a hundred times today…” Of course, the opening of P-KB4 would be the “Dutch” opening with black, or white should have played first.
– Much of the plot of the show centered around the metaphor of “the Poison pawn”, which was nice. However, the description of the poison pawn as “a chess move” is inaccurate. It’s more like a chess concept.” If one refers to “the Poison Pawn” as an opening, one calls it “The Poison Pawn variation of the ‘x’ opening”.
– The episode repeats the connon laypersons’ (non-chessplayer) incorrect conception that the measure of a chessplayer’s strength is the number of moves it takes to finish an opponent off. In the interrogation room, the “bad guy” GM explains that, yes, he was indeed distressed at the news of the death of his wife stating that it did affect his play: “it took me 40 moves to finish him off.”
I’ll grant a pass to the “chess on TV” in the show. It seemed beamed in from another, more happy, dimension that I would like to live in.
Brad H.
The episode was fun, as always, but, chesswise, there were a few nagging issues: