Review of ‘The Machine’: from a chess perspective

Jane and I went to see The Machine which is on as part of the Manchester International Festival. I have written separately about the play from a theatrical performance perspective. This blog is about it from a chess perspective.

Overall, the director and cast have done very well from a chess perspective. They picked the key aspects from the match and made appropriate points about them. In game 2, Kasparov resigned in a drawn position and the play makes a point about the pressure it shows he was under, and also that Deep Blue permitted him to go into that line: from which there was an inference that maybe there was human GM interference because another King move would have won for Deep Blue and not given the chance of a draw away. I suspect instead it an engine horizon problem. The play makes the same point about possibility of human help when discussing Be4 rather than Qb6.

I was very impressed that the actors playing Garry and Hsu had clearly learned some of the moves of some of the games. For instance, they played correctly the first dozen or so moves of game 1, five or six moves of game 2, and all nineteen moves of the final game no. 6. It would be nice to know if the players know the moves of chess, and how they managed to memorise what to play.

There were though several areas for improvement.

1. The commentary to game 2, at the point where it was a very standard early Closed Ruy Lopez, was simply wrong, implying advantage and novelty in a humdrum standard position;
2. They get some of the opening names wrong. King's Indian Attack, rather than Reti opening in game 1, though I can see why they said KIA; and Sicilian attack; an odd pronunciation of Ruy in Ruy Lopez (though who is to say that my life long pronunciation, 'Roy' is correct: they said 'Roo-eee)'.
3. The highest dramatic moment in the chess scenes was when Garry was contemplating the fateful …h6 which permitted the sacrifice Ne6. The commentator suggested that if black were instead to play …h5 he would take control of the game, the inference being that Garry would be near winning. From a theatrical perspective, this made eminent good sense, but from a chess viewpoint, is nonsense.
4. The commentary to game 6 was excellent, and most of the moves which the commentator mentioned were those played by the actors and in the actual game. But on a few occasions- I think three or four- they got the moves wrong: a4 and Re1 were transposed, and I think there were at least two more errors. These don't matter, of course, unless the producer wants accuracy.
5. One point I couldn't help but notice was that Hsu castled with two hands: the king in one, the rook in the other, swapping them round in a flourish. Whilst incorrect from a chess perspective, it was dramatically good, and perhaps also makes the subtle point that it wasn't necessary for the person who physically played the machine's moves to be a chess player.
6. Then there are picky points. David Levy, the computer chess specialist who is referred to, is an IM and not a GM; I doubt that Joel Benjamin was picked to help Deep Blue purely because three years earlier he had drawn against Garry; the depiction of my friend Nigel Short played well to the audience (English gentleman buffoon, bald at that) whilst Joel Benjamin will for sure detest how he is depicted (vain, ignorant and amazed about why Garry offered him a draw in their match in the Credit Suisse Masters- but the endgame had simplified to R+3 v R+2, all same side, so drawn with best play-enthralled with Garry so much that he asked him to sign the scoresheet as a souvenir (whereas the players would have signed each others scoresheets as a routine protocol.
7. Garry is played well: the actor looks sufficiently like him, at least facially- Garry is more stocky in real life, and has strong, bulky arms- his physical presence is part of his persona; the actor did well with Garry's facial contortions.
8. Above all, and bravo for doing this, the production team knew how to lay the pieces out- including the often missed but galling 'h1 is a white square'. I see that the team has had support from international chess arbiter Stewart Reuben and from IM Malcolm Pein: it showed.

Overall, I would rate the production as 9/10 from a chess perspective: very high marks indeed.

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